We the Living

I

IT WAS ST. PETERSBURG; THE WAR MADE it Petrograd; the revolution made it Leningrad.

It is a city of stone, and those living in it think not of stone brought upon a green earth and piled block on block to raise a city, but of one huge rock carved into streets, bridges, houses, and earth brought in handfuls, scattered, ground into the stone to remind them of that which lies beyond the city.

Its trees are rare strangers, sickly foreigners in a climate of granite, forlorn and superfluous. Its parks are reluctant concessions. In spring, a rare dandelion sticks a bright yellow head through the stones of its embankments, and men smile at it incredulously and condescendingly as at an impudent child. Its spring does not rise from the soil; its first violets, and very red tulips, and very blue hyacinths come in the hands of men, on street corners.

Petrograd was not born; it was created. The will of a man raised it where men did not choose to settle. An implacable emperor commanded into being the city and the ground under the city. Men brought earth to fill a swamp where no living thing existed but mosquitoes. And like mosquitoes, men died and fell into the grunting mire. No willing hands came to build the new capital. It rose by the labor of soldiers, thousands of soldiers, regiments who took orders and could not refuse to face a deadly foe, a gun or a swamp. They fell, and the earth they brought and their bones made the ground for the city. “Petrograd,” its residents say, “stands on skeletons.”

Petrograd is not in a hurry; it is not lazy; it is gracious and leisurely, as befits the freedom of its vast streets. It is a city that threw itself down amid the marshes and pine forests, luxuriously, both arms outflung. Its squares are paved fields; its streets are as broad as tributaries to the Neva, the widest river to cross a great city.

On Nevsky, the capital of the capital’s streets, the houses were built by generations past for generations to come. They are set and unchangeable like fortresses; their walls are thick and their windows are tiers of deep niches, rising over wide sidewalks of reddish-brown granite. From the statue of Alexander III, a huge gray man on a huge gray horse, silver rails stretch tense and straight to the Admiralty building far away, its white colonnade and thin golden spire raised like the crown, the symbol, the trade mark of Nevsky, over the broken skyline where every turret and balcony and gargoyle bending over the street are ageless features of a frozen stone face.

A golden cross on a small golden cupola rises to the clouds halfway down Nevsky, over the Anichkovsky palace, a bare red cube slashed by bare gray windows. And further, beyond the palace, a chariot raises to the clouds the black heads of its rearing horses, their hoofs hanging high over the street, over the stately columns of the Alexandrinsky theater. The palace looks like a barracks; the theater looks like a palace.

At the foot of the palace, Nevsky is cut by a stream, and a bridge arches over its swirling, muddy water. Four black statues stand at the four corners of the bridge. They may be only an accident and an ornament; they may be the very spirit of Petrograd, the city raised by man against the will of nature. Each statue is of a man and a horse. In the first one, the furious hoofs of a rearing beast are swung high in the air, ready to crush the naked, kneeling man, his arm stretched in a first effort toward the bridle of the monster. In the second, the man is up on one knee, his torso leaning back, the muscles of his legs, of his arms, of his body ready to burst through his skin, as he pulls at the bridle, in the supreme moment of the struggle. In the third, they are face to face, the man up on his feet, his head at the nostrils of a beast bewildered by a first recognition of its master. In the fourth, the beast is tamed; it steps obediently, led by the hand of the man who is tall, erect, calm in his victory, stepping forward with serene assurance, his head held straight, his eyes looking steadily into an unfathomable future.

On winter nights, strings of large white globes flare up over Nevsky — and snow sparkles over the white lights like salt crystals — and the colored lanterns of tramways, red, green, yellow, wink far away swimming over a soft darkness — and through lashes moist with frost the white globes look like crosses of long white searchlights on a black sky.

Nevsky starts on the shore of the Neva, at a quay as trim and perfect as a drawing room, with a red-granite parapet and a row of palaces, of straight angles, tall windows, chaste columns and balustrades, severe, harmonious and luxuriously stern in their masculine grace.

Divided by the river, Petrograd’s greatest mansion, the Winter Palace, faces Petrograd’s greatest prison, the Peter-Paul Fortress. The Czars lived in the Winter Palace; when they died, they crossed the Neva: in the cathedral of the Fortress, white slabs rose over the graves of the Czars. The prison stood behind the cathedral. The walls of the Fortress guarded the dead Czars and the Czar’s living enemies. In the long, silent halls of the palace, tall mirrors reflected the ramparts behind which men were forgotten, alive for decades in lonely stone graves.

Bridges rise over the river, as long humps of steel, with tramways crawling slowly up to the middle and rolling swiftly, clattering, down to the other shore. The right bank, beyond the Fortress, is a gradual surrender of the city to that earth, that countryside it has driven out; the Kamenostrovsky, a broad, quiet, endless avenue, is like a stream full of the fragrance of a future sea, a street where each step is a forecast of the country to come. The avenue and the city and the river end at the Islands, where the Neva breaks among bits of land held together by delicate bridges, where heavy white cones rise in tiers edged with dark green, over a deep silence of snow, and fir branches and bird footprints alone break the white desolation, and beyond the last island, the sky and sea are an unfinished water color of pale gray with a faint greenish band smeared across to mark a future horizon.

But Petrograd also has side streets. Petrograd’s side streets are of colorless stone rain-washed into the gray of the clouds above and of the mud below. They are bare as jail corridors; they cut each other in naked corners of square buildings that look like prisons. Old gateways are locked at night over mud-swollen ruts. Little shops frown with faded signs over turbid windows. Little parks choke with consumptive grass into which mud and dust and mud again have been ground for a century. Iron parapets guard canals of refuse-thickened water. On dark corners, rusty ikons of the Madonna are nailed over forgotten tin boxes, begging coppers for orphanages.

And farther up the Neva, rise forests of red-brick chimneys, spewing a black cloud that hangs over old, stooping, wooden houses, over an embankment of rotting logs at the placid, indifferent river. Rain falls slowly through the smoke; rain, smoke and stone are the theme-song of the city.

Petrograd’s residents wonder, sometimes, at the strange bonds that hold them. After the long winter, they curse the mud and the stone, and cry for pine forests; they flee from the city as from a hated stepmother; they flee to green grass and sand and to the sparkling capitals of Europe. And, as to an unconquerable mistress, they return in the fall, hungry for the wide streets, the shrieking tramways and the cobblestones, serene and relieved, as if life were beginning again. “Petrograd,” they say, “is the only City.”

Cities grow like forests, like weeds. Petrograd did not grow. It was born finished and complete. Petrograd is not acquainted with nature. It was the work of man.

Nature makes mistakes and takes chances; it mixes its colors and knows little of straight lines. But Petrograd is the work of man who knows what he wants.

Petrograd’s grandeur is unmarred, its squalor unrelieved. Its facets are cut clearly, sharply; they are deliberate, perfect with the straight-forward perfection of man’s work.

Cities grow with a people, and fight for the place at the head of cities, and rise slowly up the steps of years. Petrograd did not rise. It came to be at the height. It was commanded to command. It was a capital before its first stone was laid. It was a monument to the spirit of man.

Peoples know nothing of the spirit of man, for peoples are only nature, and man is a word that has no plural. Petrograd is not of the people. It has no legend, no folklore; it is not glorified in nameless songs down nameless roads. It is a stranger, aloof, incomprehensible, forbidding. No pilgrims ever traveled to its granite gates. The gates had never been opened in warm compassion to the meek, the hurt and the maimed, like the doors of the kindly Moscow. Petrograd does not need a soul; it has a mind.

And perhaps it is only a coincidence that in the language of the Russians, Moscow is “she,” while Petrograd has ever been “he.”

And perhaps it is only a coincidence that those who seized on the power in the name of the people, transferred their capital to the meek Moscow from the haughty aristocrat of cities.

In 1924, a man named Lenin died and the city was ordered to be called Leningrad. The revolution also brought posters to the city’s walls, and red banners to its houses, and sunflower-seed shells to its cobblestones. It cut a proletarian poem into the pedestal of the statue of Alexander III, and put a red rag on a stick into the hand of Catherine II in a small garden off Nevsky. It called Nevsky “Prospect of October 25th,” and Sadovaia, a cross street — ”Street of July 3rd,” in honor of dates it wanted remembered; and at the intersection, hefty conductoresses yell in the crowded tramways: “Corner of October twenty-fifth and July third! Terminal for yellow tickets. New fare, citizens!”

In the early summer of 1925 the State Textile Trust put out new cotton prints. And women smiled in the streets of Petrograd, women wearing dresses made of new materials for the first time in many years.

But there were only half-a-dozen patterns of prints in the city. Women in black and white checks passed women in black and white checks; women in red-dotted white met women in green-dotted white; women with spirals of blue on a gray dress met women with the same spirals of brown on a tan dress. They passed by like inmates of a huge orphanage, frowning, sullen, uncomfortable, losing all joy in their new garments.

In a store on Nevsky, the State Porcelain Trust displayed a glistening window of priceless china, a white tea service with odd, fuzzy, modern flowers engraved in thin black by the hand of a famous new artist. The service had stood there for months; no one could afford to buy it.

Windows sparkled with foreign imitation jewelry — strings of flowered wax beads, earrings of bright celluloid circles, the latest fashion, protected by a stupendous price from the wistful women who stopped to admire them.

In a street off Nevsky, a foreign book store had been opened; a window two floors high flaunted the glossy, radiant, incredible covers of volumes that had come from across the border.

Bright awnings spread over Nevsky’s wide, dry sidewalks, and barometers sparkled in the sun with the clear, piercing fire of clean glass.

A huge cotton billboard stood leaning against a building, presenting the tense face, enormous eyes and long, thin hands of a famous actor painted in bold brush strokes under the name of a German film.

Pictures of Lenin looked down at the passersby, a suspicious face with a short beard and narrow Oriental eyes, draped in red bunting and mourning crêpe.

On street corners, in the sun, ragged men sold saccharine and plaster busts of Lenin. Sparrows chirped on telephone wires. Lines stood at the doors of cooperatives; women took off their jackets and, in short-sleeved, wrinkled blouses, offered flabby white arms to the first heat of the summer sun.

A poster hung high on a wall. On the poster, a huge worker swung a hammer toward the sky, and the shadow of the hammer fell like a huge black cross over the little buildings of the city under his boots.

Kira Argounova stopped by the poster to light a cigarette.

She took a paper box from the pocket of her old coat and, with two straight fingers, swiftly, without looking, swung a cigarette into her mouth. Then she opened her old handbag of imitation leather and took out an expensive foreign lighter ingraved with her initials. She flicked a brief little flame, hurled a jet of smoke from the corner of her mouth and slammed the bag shut over the lighter. She jerked the frayed cuff of her coat sleeve and glanced at a sparkling watch on a narrow gold band. She swung forward; the high heels of her slippers rang hurriedly, resonantly down the granite sidewalk. Her slippers were patched; her legs displayed the tight, sheer luster of foreign silk stockings.

She walked toward an old palace that bore a red, five-pointed star over the entrance and an inscription in gold letters:

DISTRICT CLUB OF THE ALL-UNION COMMUNIST PARTY

Its glass door was severely, immaculately polished, but the latch on its garden gate was broken. Weeds grew over what had been gravelled walks, and cigarette stubs rocked softly in an abandoned fountain, around a dejected marble cupid with a greenish patch of rust across its stomach, at the dry mouth of an urn.

Kira hurried down deserted walks, through a thick, neglected green tangle that drowned the clatter of tramways outside; blue pigeons fluttered lazily into the branches at the sound of her steps, and a bee rocked on a heavy purple tuft of clover. A giant regiment of oaks stood with arms outstretched, hiding the palace from the eyes of the street.

In the depths of the garden stood a small two-storied wing linked to the palace by the bridge of a short gallery. The windows of the first floor were broken and a sparrow sat on a sharp glass edge, jerking its head sidewise to look into the mouldy, deserted rooms. But on a window sill of the second floor lay a pile of books.

The heavy, hand-carved door was not locked. Kira went in and swung impatiently up the long stairway. It was a very long stairway. It rose to the second floor in a straight line, an endless flight of bare stone steps, cracked and crumbling in little trails of gravel. The stairway had had a magnificent white balustrade; but the balustrade was broken; empty holes gaped over the jagged stumps of marble columns and their white bodies still lay at the foot of the stairs. Hollow echoes rolled against the walls, against the murals of graceful white swans on blue lakes, of rose garlands, of sensual nymphs fleeing from grinning satyrs; the murals were faded and cut by gashes of peeling plaster.

Kira knocked at the door on the top of the stairs.

Andrei Taganov opened it and stepped back, astonished; his eyes widened in the slow, incredulous glance of a man looking at a miracle that could not become habitual; he forgot to move, he stood before her, the collar of a white shirt thrown open at his sunburnt throat.

“Kira!”

She laughed, a clear, metallic laughter: “How are you, Andrei?”

His hands closed slowly, softly over her shoulders, so softly that she could not feel his hands, only their strength, their will holding her, bending her backward; but his lips on hers were brutal, uncontrollable. His eyes were closed; hers were open, looking indifferently up at the ceiling.

“Kira, I didn’t expect you till tonight.”

“I know. But you won’t throw me out, will you?”

She stepped aside, preceding him through the dim little lobby into his room, throwing her bag on a chair, her hat on a table, with imperious familiarity.

She alone knew why Andrei Taganov had had to economize, that winter; why he had given up his room and moved into an abandoned wing of the palace, which the Party Club could not use and had given to him free of rent.

It had been the secret love nest of a prince. Many years ago, a forgotten sovereign had waited there for the light, stealthy footsteps and the rustle of a silk skirt up the long marble stairway. His magnificent furniture was gone; but the walls, the fireplace and the ceiling remained.

The walls were covered with a white brocade hand-embroidered in delicate little wreaths of blue and silver leaves. A marble row of cupids with garlands and cornucopias spouting frozen white flowers encircled the cornice. A marble Leda reclined voluptuously in the embrace of white wings over the fireplace. And from the soft blue of a sky painted on the ceiling, among pale, downy clouds, white doves — that had watched long nights of luxurious orgies — now looked at an iron bed, broken-down chairs, a long unpainted table loaded with books in bright red covers, wooden boxes piled as a dresser, posters of Red Army soldiers hiding the splits in the white brocade, and a leather jacket hanging on a nail in a corner.

Kira said peremptorily: “I came now to tell you that I can’t come tonight.”

“Oh! ... You can’t, Kira?”

“No. I can’t. Now don’t look tragic. Here, I brought you something to cheer you up.”

She took a small toy from her pocket, a glass tube that ended in a bulb filled with a red liquid in which a little black figure floated, trembling.

“What’s that?”

She held the bulb in her closed fist, but the little figure did not move. “I can’t do it. You try. Hold it this way.”

She closed his fingers over the bulb. No expression, no movement of his told it to her, but she knew that he was not indifferent to the touch of her fingers on his, that all of the past winter had not made him accustomed and indifferent. The red liquid in the sealed tube spurted up suddenly in furious, boiling bubbles; the little black, horned figure jumped ecstatically up and down through the storm.

“See? They call it American Resident. I bought it on a street corner. Cute, isn’t it?”

He smiled and watched the imp dancing. “Very cute.... Kira, why can’t you come tonight?”

“It’s ... some business that I have to attend. Nothing important. Do you mind?”

“No. Not if it’s inconvenient for you. Can you stay now?”

“Only for a little while.” She tore her coat off and threw it on the bed.

“Oh, Kira!”

“Like it? It’s your own fault. You insisted on a new dress.”

The dress was red, very plain, very short, trimmed in black patent leather: a belt, four buttons, a flat round collar and a huge bow. She stood, leaning against the door, slouching a little, suddenly very fragile and young, a child’s dress clinging to a body that looked as helpless and innocent as a child’s, her tangled hair thrown back, her skirt high over slender legs pressed closely together, her eyes round and candid, but her smile mocking and confident, her lips moist, wide. He stood looking at her, frightened by a woman who looked more dangerous, more desirable than he had ever known.

She jerked her head impatiently: “Well? You don’t like it?”

“Kira, you are ... the dress is ... so lovely. I’ve never seen a woman’s dress like that.”

“What do you know about women’s dresses?”

“I looked through a whole magazine of Paris fashions at the Censorship bureau yesterday.”

“You looking through a fashion magazine?”

“I was thinking of you. I wanted to know what women liked.”

“And what did you learn?”

“Things I’d like you to have. Funny little hats. And slippers like sandals — with nothing but straps. And jewelry. Diamonds.”

“Andrei! You didn’t tell that to your comrades at the Censorship bureau, did you?”

He laughed, still looking at her intently, incredulously: “No. I didn’t.”

“Stop staring at me like that. What’s the matter? Are you afraid to come near me?”

His fingers touched the red dress. Then his lips sank suddenly into the hollow of her naked elbow.

He sat in the deep niche of the window sill and she stood beside him, in the tight circle of his arms. His face was expressionless, and only his eyes laughed soundlessly, cried to her soundlessly what he could not say.

Then he was talking, his face buried in the red dress: “You know, I’m glad you came now, instead of tonight. There were still so many hours to wait.... I’ve never seen you like this.... I’ve tried to read and I couldn’t.... Will you wear this dress next time? Was that your own idea, this leather bow? ... Why do you look so ... so much more grownup in a childish dress like this? ... I like that bow.... Kira, you know, I’ve missed you so terribly.... Even when I’m working I ...”

Her eyes were soft, pleading, a little frightened: “Andrei, you shouldn’t think of me when you’re working.”

He said slowly, without smiling: “Sometimes, it’s only thoughts of you that help me — through my work.”

“Andrei! What’s the matter?”

But he was smiling again: “Why don’t you want me to think of you? Remember, last time you were here, you told me about that book you read with a hero called Andrei and you said you thought of me? I’ve been repeating it to myself ever since, and I bought the book. I know it isn’t much, Kira, but ... well ... you don’t say them often, things like that.”

She leaned back, her hands crossed behind her head, mocking and irresistible: “Oh, I think of you so seldom I’ve forgotten your last name. Hope I read it in a book. Why, I’ve even forgotten that scar, right there, over your eye.” Her finger was following the line of the scar, sliding down his forehead, erasing his frown; she was laughing, ignoring the plea she had understood.

“Kira, would it cost so very much to install a telephone in your house?”

“But they ... we ... have no electrical connections in the apartment. It’s really impossible.”

“I’ve wished so often that you had a phone. Then I could call you ... once in a while. Sometimes, it’s so hard to wait, just wait for you.”

“Don’t I come here as often as you wish, Andrei?”

“It isn’t that. Sometimes ... you see ... I want just a look at you ... the same day you’ve been here ... sometimes even a minute after you’ve left. It’s that feeling that you’re gone and I have no way of calling, of finding you, no right to approach the house where you live, as if you had left the city. Sometimes, I look at all the people in the streets — and it frightens me — that feeling that you’re lost somewhere among them — and I can’t get to you, I can’t scream to you over all those heads.”

She said, implacably: “Andrei, you’ve promised never to call at my house.”

“But wouldn’t you allow me to telephone, if we could arrange it?”

“No. My parents might guess. And ... oh, Andrei, we have to be careful. We have to be so careful — particularly now.”

“Why particularly now?”

“Oh, no more than usual. It isn’t so hard, is it, that one condition, just to be careful — for my sake?”

“No, dear.”

“I’ll come often. I’ll still be here when you’ll become tired of me.”

“Kira, why do you say that?”

“Well, you’ll be tired of me, some day, won’t you?”

“You don’t think that, do you?”

She said hastily: “No, of course not.... Well, of course, I love you. You know it. But I don’t want you to feel ... to feel that you’re tied to me ... that your life ...”

“Kira, why don’t you want me to say that my life ...”

“This is why I don’t want you to say anything.”

She bent and closed his mouth with a kiss that hurt it.

Beyond the window, some club member in the palace was practicing the “Internationale,” slowly, with one hand, on a sonorous concert piano.

Andrei’s lips moved hungrily over her throat, her hands, her shoulders. He tore himself away with an effort. He made himself say lightly, gaily, as an escape, rising: “I have something for you, Kira. It was for tonight. But then ...”

He took a tiny box from a drawer of his desk, and pressed it into her hand. She protested helplessly: “Oh, Andrei, you shouldn’t. I’ve asked you not to. With all you’ve done for me and ...”

“I’ve done nothing for you. I think you’re too unselfish. It has always been your family. I’ve had to fight to have you get this dress.”

“And the stockings, and the lighter, and ... Oh, Andrei, I’m so grateful to you, but ...”

“But don’t be afraid to open it.”

It was a small, flat bottle of real French perfume. She gasped. She wanted to protest. But she looked at his smile and she could only laugh happily: “Oh, Andrei!”

His hand moved slowly in the air, without touching her, following the line of her neck, her breast, her body, cautiously, attentively, as if modeling a statue.

“What are you doing, Andrei?”

“Trying to remember.”

“What?”

“Your body. As you stand — just now. Sometimes when I’m alone, I try to draw you in the air — like this — to feel as if you were standing before me.”

She pressed herself closer to him. Her eyes were growing darker; her smile seemed slow and heavy. She said, extending the perfume bottle: “You must open it. I want you to give me the first drop — yourself.” She drew him down to her side, on the bed. She asked: “Where will you put it?”

His finger tips moist with the bewildering fragrance from another world, he pressed them timidly into her hair.

She laughed defiantly: “Where else?”

His finger tips brushed her lips.

“Where else?”

His hand drew a soft line down her throat, stopping abruptly at the black patent leather collar.

Her eyes holding his, she jerked her collar, tearing the snaps of her dress open. “Where else?”

He was whispering, his lips on her breast: “Oh, Kira, Kira, I wanted you — here — tonight....”

She leaned back, her face dark, challenging, pitiless, her voice low: “I’m here — now.”

“But ...”

“Why not?”

“If you don’t ...”

“I do. That’s why I came.”

And as he tried to rise, her arms pulled him down imperiously. She whispered: “Don’t bother to undress. I haven’t the time.”

He could forgive her the words, for he had forgotten them, when he saw her exhausted, breathing jerkily, her eyes closed, her head limp in the curve of his arm. He was grateful to her for the pleasure he had given her.

He could forgive anything, when she turned to him suddenly at the door, gathering her coat over the wrinkled red dress, when she whispered, her voice pleading, wistful and tender: “You won’t miss me too much till next time, will you? ... I ... I’ve made you happy, haven’t I?”

She ran swiftly up the stairs to her apartment, the home that had been Admiral Kovalensky’s. She unlocked the door, looking impatiently at her wristwatch.

In the former drawing room, Marisha Lavrova was busy, standing over a Primus, stirring a kettle of soup with one hand, holding a book in the other, memorizing aloud: “The relationships of social classes can be studied on the basis of the distribution of the economic means of production at any given historical ...”

Kira stopped beside her. “How’s the Marxist theory, Marisha?” she interrupted loudly, tearing her hat off, shaking her hair. “Do you have a cigarette? Smoked my last one on the way home.”

Marisha nodded with her chin toward the dresser. “In the drawer,” she answered. “Light one for me, too, will you? How’s things?”

“Fine. Wonderful weather outside. Real summer. Busy?”

“Uh-uh. Have to give a lecture at the Club tomorrow — on Historical Materialism.”

Kira lighted two cigarettes and stuck one into Marisha’s mouth.

“Thanks,” Marisha acknowledged, swirling the spoon in the thick mixture. “Historical Materialism and noodle soup. That’s for a guest,” she winked slyly. “Guess you know him. Name’s Victor Dunaev.”

“I wish you luck. You and Victor both.”

“Thanks. How’s everything with you? Heard from the boy friend lately?”

Kira answered reluctantly: “Yes. I received a letter.... And a telegram.”

“How’s he getting along? When’s he coming back?”

It was as if Kira’s face had frozen suddenly into a stern, reverent calm, as if Marisha were looking again at the austere Kira of eight months ago. She answered:

“Tonight.”

II

A TELEGRAM LAY ON THE TABLE BEFORE Kira. It contained four words:

“Arriving June fifth. Leo.”

She had read it often; but two hours remained till the arrival of the Crimean train and she could still re-read it many times. She spread it out on the gray, faded satin cover of the bed and knelt by its side, carefully smoothing every wrinkle of the paper. It had four words: a word for every two months past; she wondered how many days she had paid for every letter, she did not try to think of how many hours and of what the hours had been.

But she remembered how many times she had cried to herself: “It doesn’t matter. He’ll come back — saved.” It had become so simple and so easy: if one could reduce one’s life to but one desire — life could be cold, clear and bearable. Perhaps others still knew that there were people, streets, and feelings; she didn’t; she knew only that he would come back saved. It had been a drug and a disinfectant; it had burned everything out and left her icy, limpid, smiling.

There had been her room — suddenly grown so empty that she wondered, bewildered, how four walls could hold such an enormous void. There had been mornings when she awakened to stare at a day as dim and hopeless as the gray square of snow clouds in the window, and it took her a tortured effort to rise; days when each step across the room was a conquest of will, when all the objects around her, the Primus, the cupboard, the table, were enemies screaming to her of what they had shared with her, of what they had lost.

But Leo was in the Crimea where every minute was a ray of sunlight, and every ray of sunlight — a new drop of life.

There had been days when she fled from her room to people and voices, and fled from the people, for she found herself suddenly still lonelier, and she fled to wander through the streets, her hands in her pockets, her shoulders hunched, watching the sleigh runners, the sparrows, the snow around the lights, begging of them something she could not name. Then she returned home, and lighted the “Bourgeoise,” and ate a half-cooked dinner on a bare table, lost in a dim room, crushed under the huge sound of the logs crackling, the clock ticking on a shelf, hoofs crunching snow beyond the window.

But Leo drank milk and ate fruit with skins bursting into fresh, sparkling juice.

There had been nights when she buried her head under the blanket and her face in the pillow, as if trying to escape from her own body, a body burning with the touch of a stranger’s hands — in the bed that had been Leo’s.

But Leo was lying on a beach by the sea and his body was growing suntanned.

There had been moments when she saw, in sudden astonishment, as if she had not grasped it before, just what she was doing to her own body; then she closed her eyes, for behind that thought was another one, more frightening, forbidden: of what she was doing to another man’s soul.

But Leo had gained five pounds and the doctors were pleased.

There had been moments when she felt as if she were actually seeing the downward movement of a smiling mouth, the swift, peremptory wave of a long, thin hand, seeing them for a second briefer than lightning, and then her every muscle screamed with pain, so that she thought that she was not alone to hear it.

But Leo wrote to her.

She read his letters, trying to remember the inflection of his voice as it would pronounce each word. She spread the letters around her and sat in the room as with a living presence.

He was coming back, cured, strong, saved. She had lived eight months for one telegram. She had never looked beyond it. Beyond the telegram, there was no future.

The train from the Crimea was late.

Kira stood on the platform, motionless, looking at the empty track, two long bands of steel that turned to brass far away, in the clear, summer sunset beyond the terminal vaults. She was afraid to look at the clock and learn that which she had feared: that the train was hopelessly, indefinitely late. The platform trembled under the grating wheels of a heavy baggage truck. Somewhere in the long steel tunnel, a voice cried mournfully at regular intervals, the same words that blended into one, like the call of a bird in the dusk: “Grishka shove it over.” Boots shuffled lazily, aimlessly past her. Across the tracks a woman sat on a bundle, her head drooping. The glass panes above were turning a desolate orange. The voice called plaintively: “Grishka shove it over....”

When Kira went to the office of the station commandant, the executive answered briskly that the train would be quite late; unavoidable delay; a misunderstanding at a junction; the train was not expected till tomorrow morning.

She stood on the platform for a little while longer, aimlessly, reluctant to leave the place where she had almost felt his presence. Then she walked out slowly, walked down the stairs, her arms limp, her feet lingering unsteadily on every step she descended.

Far down at the end of the street, the sky was a flat band of bright, pure, motionless yellow, like the spilled yoke of an egg, and the street looked brown and wide in a warm twilight. She walked away slowly.

She saw a familiar corner, passed it, then came back and swerved into another direction, toward the house of the Dunaevs. She had an evening that had to be filled.

Irina opened the door. Her hair was wild, uncombed, but she wore a new dress of black and white striped batiste, and her tired face was powdered neatly.

“Well, Kira! Of all people! What a rare surprise! Come in. Take your coat off. I have something — someone — to show you. And how do you like my new dress?”

Kira was laughing suddenly. She took off her coat: she wore a new dress of black and white striped batiste. Irina gasped: “Oh ... oh, hell! When did you get it?”

“About a week ago.”

“I thought that if I got the plain stripes, I wouldn’t see so many of them around, but the first time I wore it, I met three ladies in the same dress, within fifteen minutes.... Oh, what’s the use? ... Oh, well, come on!”

In the dining room the windows were open, and the room felt spacious, fresh with the soft clatter of the street. Vasili Ivanovitch got up hastily, smiling, dropping tools and a piece of wood on the table. Victor rose gracefully, bowing. A tall, blond, husky young man jumped up and stood stiffly, while Irina announced: “Two little twins from the Soviet reformatory! ... Kira, may I present Sasha Chernov? Sasha — my cousin, Kira Argounova.”

Sasha’s hand was big and firm, and his handshake too strong. He grinned shyly, a timid, candid, disarming grin.

“Sasha, this is a rare treat for you,” said Irina. “A rare guest. The recluse of Petrograd.”

“Of Leningrad,” Victor corrected.

“Of Petrograd,” Irina repeated. “How are you, Kira? I hate to admit how glad I am to see you.”

“I’m delighted to meet you,” Sasha muttered. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Without a doubt,” said Victor, “Kira is the most talked about woman in the city — and even in Party circles.” Kira glanced at him sharply; but he was smiling pleasantly: “Glamorous women have always been an irresistible theme for admiring whispers. Like Madame de Pompadour, for instance. Charm refutes the Marxist theory: it knows no class distinctions.”

“Shut up,” said Irina. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m sure it’s something rotten.”

“Not at all,” said Kira quietly, holding Victor’s eyes. “Victor is very complimentary, even though he does exaggerate.”

Awkwardly, diffidently, Sasha moved a chair for Kira, offering it to her silently with a wave of his hand and a helpless grin.

“Sasha is studying history,” said Irina, “that is, he was. He’s been thrown out of the University for trying to think in a country of free thought.”

“I will have you understand, Irina,” said Victor, “that I won’t tolerate such remarks in my presence. I expect the Party to be respected.”

“Oh, stop acting!” Irina snapped. “The Party Collective won’t hear you.”

Kira noticed Sasha’s long, silent glance at Victor; Sasha’s steely blue eyes were neither bashful nor friendly.

“I’m sorry about the University, Sasha,” said Kira, feeling suddenly that she liked him.

“I did not mind it,” Sasha drawled in a quiet, measured tone of conviction. “It, really, was not essential. There are some outward circumstances which an autocratic power can control. There are some values it can never reach nor subjugate.”

“You will discover, Kira,” Victor smiled coldly, “that you and Sasha have much in common. You are both inclined to disregard the rudiments of caution.”

“Victor, will you ...” Vasili Ivanovitch began.

“Father, I have a right to expect, as long as I’m feeding this family, that my views ...”

“You’re feeding whom?” a shrill voice asked from the next room. Acia appeared on the threshold, her stockings loose around her ankles, the shreds of a torn magazine in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other. “I wish someone’d feed someone. I’m still hungry and Irina wouldn’t give me a second helping of soup.”

“Father, I expect something to be done about this child,” said Victor. “She’s growing up like a bum. If she were to join a children’s organization, such as the Pioneers ...”

“Victor, we won’t discuss that again,” Vasili Ivanovitch interrupted firmly, quietly.

“Who wants to be a stinking Pioneer?” asked Acia.

“Acia, you go back to your room,” Irina ordered, “or I’ll put you to bed.”

“You and who else?” stated Acia, disappearing behind a slammed door.

“Really,” Victor observed, “if I’m able to study as I do and work besides and provide for this household, I don’t see why Irina can’t take proper care of one brat.”

No one answered.

Vasili Ivanovitch bent over the piece of wood he had been carving. Irina drew pictures with a spoon handle on the old table cloth. Victor rose to his feet: “Sorry, Kira, to desert such a rare guest, but I have to go. I have a dinner engagement.”

“Sure,” said Irina. “See that the hostess doesn’t borrow any silverware from Kira’s room.”

Victor left. Kira noticed that the tools were trembling in Vasili Ivanovitch’s wrinkled fingers.

“What are you doing, Uncle Vasili?”

“Making a frame,” Vasili Ivanovitch raised his head, showing his work proudly, “for one of Irina’s pictures. They’re good pictures. It’s a shame to let them get crumpled and ruined in a drawer.”

“It’s beautiful, Uncle Vasili. I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Oh, I used to be good at it. I haven’t done it for years. But I used to be good in the ... in the old days, when I was a young man, in Siberia.”

“How’s your job, Uncle Vasili?”

“No more,” said Irina. “How long do you think one can keep a job in a private store?”

“What happened?”

“Haven’t you heard? They closed the store for back taxes. And the boss, himself, is now more broke than we are.... Would you like some tea, Kira? I’ll fix it. The tenants stole our Primus, but Sasha will help me to light the samovar in the kitchen. Come on!” she threw at him imperiously, and Sasha rose obediently. “I don’t know why I ask him to help,” she winked at Kira, “he’s the most helpless, useless, awkward thing born.” But her eyes were sparkling happily. She took his arm and wheeled him out of the room.

It was growing dark, and the open window was a sharp, bright blue. Vasili Ivanovitch did not light a lamp. He bent lower over his carving.

“Sasha is a nice boy,” he said suddenly, “and I’m worried.”

“Why?” asked Kira.

He whispered: “Politics. Secret societies. Poor doomed little fool.”

“And Victor suspects?”

“I think so.”

It was Irina who switched on the light, returning with a sparkling tray of cups, preceding Sasha with a steaming samovar.

“Here’s the tea. And some cookies. I made them. See how you like them, Kira, for an artist’s cooking.”

“How’s the art, Irina?”

“The job, you mean? Oh, I still have it. But I’m afraid I’m not too good at drawing posters. I’ve been reprimanded twice in the Wall Newspaper. They said my peasant women looked like cabaret dancers and my workers were too graceful. My bourgeois ideology, you know. Well, what do they want? It’s not my specialty. I could scream, sometimes, I can’t get any ideas at all for one more of those damn posters.”

“And now they have that competition,” Vasili Ivanovitch said mournfully.

“What competition?”

Irina spilled tea on the table cloth. “An inter-club competition. Who’ll make the most, the best and the reddest posters. Have to work two hours extra every day — free — for the glory of the Club.”

“Under the Soviets,” drawled Sasha, “there is no exploitation.”

“I thought,” said Irina, “that I had a good idea for a winner: a real proletarian wedding — a worker and a peasant woman on a tractor, God damn them! But I heard that the Club of Red Printers is making a symbolic one — the union of an airplane and a tractor — sort of the spirit of Electrification and Proletarian State Construction.”

“And the wages,” sighed Vasili Ivanovitch. “She spent all of her last month’s salary on shoes for Acia.”

“Well,” said Irina, “she couldn’t go barefooted.”

“Irina, you work too hard,” Sasha remarked, “and you take the work too seriously. Why waste your nerves? It’s all temporary.”

“It is,” said Vasili Ivanovitch.

“I hope it is,” said Kira.

“Sasha’s my life-saver.” Irina’s weary mouth smiled tremulously and sarcastically at once, as if trying to deny the involuntary tenderness in her voice. “He took me to the theater last week. And week before last, we went to the Museum of Alexander III, and we wandered there for hours, looking at the paintings.”

“Leo’s coming back tomorrow,” Kira said suddenly, irrelevantly, as if she could not keep it any longer.

“Oh!” Irina’s spoon clattered down. “You never told us. I’m so glad! And he’s quite well?”

“Yes. He was to return tonight, but the train is late.”

“How is his aunt in Berlin?” asked Vasili Ivanovitch. “Still helping you? There’s an example of family loyalty. I have the greatest admiration for that lady, even though I’ve never seen her. Anyone who’s safe, away, free and can still understand us, buried alive in this Soviet graveyard, must be a wonderful person. She’s saved Leo’s life.”

“Uncle Vasili,” said Kira, “when you see Leo, will you remember never to mention it? His aunt’s help, I mean. You remember I explained to you how sensitive he is about being under obligation to her, and so we’ll all be careful not to remind him of it, will we?”

“Certainly, I understand, child. Don’t worry.... But that’s Europe for you. That’s abroad. That’s what a human life does to a human being. I think it’s hard for us to understand kindness and what used to be called ethics. We’re all turning into beasts in a beastly struggle. But we’ll be saved. We’ll be saved before it gets us all.”

“We don’t have long to wait,” said Sasha.

Kira noticed a frightened, pleading look in Irina’s eyes.

It was late when Kira and Sasha rose to go. He lived far on the other side of the city, but he offered to escort her home, for the streets were dark. He wore an old coat and he walked fast, slouching. They hurried together through a soft, transparent twilight, through the city full of the fragrance of a warm earth somewhere far under the pavements and cobblestones.

“Irina isn’t happy,” he said suddenly.

“No,” said Kira, “she isn’t. No one is.”

“We’re living in difficult times. But things will change. Things are changing. There still are men to whom freedom is more than a word on posters.”

“Do you think they have a chance, Sasha?”

His voice was low, tense with a passionate conviction, a quiet strength that made her wonder why she had ever thought him bashful: “Do you think the Russian worker is a beast that licks its yoke while his mind is being battered out of him? Do you think he’s fooled by the clatter of a very noisy gang of tyrants? Do you know what he reads? Do you know the books that are hidden in the factories? The papers that pass secretly through many hands? Do you know that the people is awakening and ...”

“Sasha,” she interrupted, “aren’t you playing a very dangerous game?”

He did not answer. He looked at the old roofs of the city against a milky, bluish sky.

“The people,” she said, “has claimed too many victims already — of your kind.”

“Russia has a long revolutionary history,” he said. “They know it. They’re even teaching it in their schools, but they think it’s ended. It isn’t. It’s just beginning. And it has never lacked men who did not think of the danger. In the Czar’s days — or at any other time.”

She stopped and looked at him in the dusk, and said desperately, forgetting that she had met him for the first time but a few hours ago: “Oh, Sasha, is it worth the chance you’re taking?”

He towered over her, strands of blond hair sticking out from under his cap, his mouth grinning slowly over the raised collar of his coat. “You mustn’t worry, Kira. And Irina mustn’t worry. I’m not in danger. They won’t get me. They won’t have the time.”

In the morning, Kira had to go to work.

She had insisted on working; Andrei had found a job for her — the job of lecturer and excursion guide in the Museum of the Revolution. The job consisted of sitting at home and waiting for a call from the Excursion Center. When they called, she hurried to the Museum and led a group of bewildered people through the halls of what had been the Winter Palace. She received a few rubles for each excursion; she was listed as a Soviet employee by the Upravdom of her house; it saved her from an exorbitant rent and from the suspicion of being bourgeois.

In the morning, she had telephoned the Nikolaevsky station; the train from the Crimea was not expected until early in the afternoon. Then the Excursion Center called her; she had to go.

The halls of the Winter Palace displayed faded photographs of revolutionary leaders, yellowed proclamations, maps, diagrams, models of Czarist prisons, rusty guns, splinters of leg irons. Thirty workers were waiting in the Palace lobby for the “comrade guide.” They were on vacation, but their Educational Club had arranged the excursion and they could not ignore its command. They removed their caps respectfully, and shuffled timidly, obediently after Kira, and listened attentively, scratching their heads.

“... and this photograph, comrades, was taken just before his execution. He was hanged for the assassination of a tyrant, one of the Czar’s henchmen. Such was the end of another glorious victim on the tortuous path of the Worker-Peasant Revolution.”

“... and this diagram, comrades, gives us a clear, visual illustration of the strike movement in Czarist Russia. You will note that the red line drops sharply after the year 1905....”

Kira recited her lecture evenly, mechanically; she was no longer conscious of words; it was nothing but a succession of memorized sounds, each dragging the next one automatically, without any assistance of will; she did not know what she was going to say; she knew that her hand would rise at a given word and point at the right picture; she knew at which word the gray, impersonal blot that was her audience would laugh and at which word it would gasp and grunt with social indignation. She knew that her listeners wanted her to hurry and that the Excursion Center wanted the lecture to be long and detailed.

“... and this, comrades, is the genuine carriage in which Alexander II was riding on the day of his assassination. This shattered back was torn by the bomb in the hands of ...”

But she was thinking of the train from the Crimea; perhaps it had arrived; perhaps the lonely room she hated had now become a temple.

“Comrade guide, can you tell me if Alexander II was paid by International Imperialists?”

The room was empty when she came home.

“No,” said Marisha, “he hasn’t arrived.”

“No,” said the gruff voice over the telephone, “the train isn’t in. Is that you again, citizen? What’s the matter with you? Trains aren’t run for your personal convenience. It’s not expected until tonight.”

She took off her coat. She raised her hand and glanced at her wristwatch; her hand froze in midair; she remembered whose gift it was; she took the watch off and threw it into a drawer.

She curled in an armchair by the window and tried to read a newspaper; the newspaper slipped to the floor; she sat still, her head on her arm.

It was an hour later that she heard steps behind the door, and the door was thrown open without a knock. The first thing she saw was a dusty suitcase. Then she saw the smile, the drooping lips arched over very white teeth in a tanned face. Then she stood with the back of her hand at her mouth and could not move.

He said: “Allo, Kira.”

She did not kiss him. Her hands fell on his shoulders and moved down his arms, all her weight in her fingers, for she was sagging suddenly and her face was sliding slowly down his chest, down the cloth of his coat; and as he tried to lift her head, she pressed her mouth to his hand and held it; her shoulders jerked; she was sobbing.

“Kira, you little fool!”

He was laughing softly; his fingers caressed her hair; the fingers were trembling. He lifted her in his arms and carried her to the armchair, and sat down, holding her on his lap, forcing her lips to meet his.

“And that’s the strong Kira who never cries. You shouldn’t be so glad to see me, Kira.... Stop it, Kira.... You little fool.... My dearest, dearest ...”

She tried to get up: “Leo.... You must take your coat off and ...”

“Stay still.”

He held her, and she leaned back, and she felt suddenly that she had no strength to lift her arms, that she had no strength ever to move again; and the Kira who despised femininity, smiled a tender, radiant, trusting smile, weaker than a woman’s, the smile of a lost, bewildered child, her lashes heavy and sparkling with tears.

He looked at her, his eyes half-closed, and his glance was insulting in its open, mocking understanding of his power, a glance more voluptuous than a lover’s caress.

Then he turned away and asked: “Was it terribly hard for you — this winter?”

“A little. But we don’t have to talk about it. It’s past. Do you cough any more, Leo?”

“No.”

“And you’re well? Quite, quite, completely well? Free to live again?”

“I am well — yes. As to living again....”

He shrugged. His face was tanned, his arms were strong, his cheeks were not hollow any longer; but she noticed something in his eyes that had not been cured; something that, perhaps, had grown beyond cure.

She said: “Leo, isn’t the worst of it over? Aren’t we ready now to begin....”

“Begin with what? I have nothing to bring back to you — but a healthy body.”

“What else can I want?”

“Nothing else — from a gigolo.”

“Leo!”

“Well, am I not one?”

“Leo, don’t you love me?”

“I love you. I love you too much. I wish I didn’t. It would all be so simple if I didn’t. But to love a woman and to see her dragging herself through this hell they call life here, and not to help her, but to let her drag you instead ... Did you really think I’d bless this health you gave back to me? I hate it because you gave it back to me. And because I love you.”

She laughed softly: “Would you rather hate me, too?”

“Yes. I’d rather. You are that which I’ve lost long ago. But I love you so much that I’m trying to hold on to it, to that which you think I am, which I know I was, even though I can’t hold on much longer. And that’s all I have to offer you, Kira.”

She looked up at him quietly, and her eyes were dry, and her smile was not a child’s and stronger than a woman’s. She said: “There is only one thing that matters and that we’ll remember. The rest doesn’t matter. I don’t care what life is to be nor what it does to us. But it won’t break us. Neither you nor me. That’s our only weapon. That’s the only banner we can hold against all those others around us. That’s all we have to know about the future.”

He said more tenderly, more earnestly than she had ever heard him say: “Kira, I wish you weren’t what you are.”

Then she buried her face on his shoulder and whispered: “And we won’t ever talk about it again. And now we don’t have to talk at all, do we? I have to get up and powder my nose, and you have to take that coat off, and take a bath, and I’ll fix you some lunch.... But first let me sit with you, for just a few moments, just sit still ... don’t move ... Leo....”

Her head slid slowly to his breast, to his knees, to his feet.

III

IN THE AFTERNOON, THREE DAYS LATER, THE door bell rang and Kira went to answer it.

She threw the door half-open, protected by a chain. On the stair-landing stood a heavy woman in a smart, expensive overcoat. Her face, slanting back from a prominent, pointed chin, was raised with a studied movement of graceful inquiry, revealing a stout, white neck; her full lips, smeared with a violent magenta, were half-open, revealing strong white teeth. Her hand poised on a broad expanse of green silk scarf, she drawled in a self-consciously gracious voice: “Does Leo Kovalensky live here?”

Kira looked incredulously at the diamond rings sparkling on the short, white fingers. She answered: “Why ... yes.”

She did not remove the chain; she stood staring at the woman. The woman said with a little accent of gentle firmness: “I want to see him.”

Kira let her enter. The woman looked at Kira curiously, inquisitively, narrowing her eyes.

Leo rose with a surprised frown when they entered the room. The woman extended both hands to him in a dramatic greeting. “Leo! So delightful to see you again! I’ve remembered my threat to find you. I really intend to be a nuisance!”

Leo did not smile in answer to her expectant giggle; he bowed graciously; he said: “Kira, this is Antonina Pavlovna Platoshkina — Kira Alexandrovna Argounova.”

“Oh! ... Argounova? ... Oh ...” said Antonina Pavlovna, as if noting the fact that Kira’s name was not Leo’s; she sounded almost relieved. She extended her arm, in a straight line, her fingers drooping, as if she were giving her hand to a man and expecting him to kiss it.

“Antonina Pavlovna and I were neighbors in the sanatorium,” Leo explained.

“And he was a perfectly ungracious neighbor, I must complain,” Antonina Pavlovna laughed huskily. “He wouldn’t wait for me — and I wanted so much to leave on the same train. And, Leo, you didn’t give me your apartment number and I had a perfectly terrible time trying to get it out of the Upravdom. Upravdoms are one of the unavoidable nuisances of our era, and all we of the intelligentsia can do is bear with it with a sense of humor.”

She took off her coat. She wore a plain black dress of new, expensive silk in the latest fashion, and foreign earrings of green celluloid circles. Her hair was combed back severely off her forehead and two trim, sleek coils were flattened against her cheeks smeared with a very white powder. Her hair was an incredible orange, the color of a magnificent string of amber that swung like a pendulum, striking her stomach, when she moved. Her dress fitted tightly, slanting sharply from very wide hips down to heavy legs with very thin ankles and very small feet that seemed crushed under their disproportionate burden. She sat down and her stomach settled in a wide fold over her lap.

“When did you return, Tonia?” Leo asked.

“Yesterday. And oh, what a trip!” she sighed. “These Soviet trains! Really, I believe I lost everything I accomplished in the sanatorium. I was taking a rest cure for my nerves,” she explained, pointing her chin at Kira. “And what sensitive person isn’t a nervous wreck these days? But the Crimea! That place saved my life.”

“It was beautiful,” Leo agreed.

“But, really, it lost all its charm after you left, Leo. You know, he was the most charming patient in that dull sanatorium and everybody admired him so much — oh, purely platonically, my dear, if you’re worried,” she winked at Kira.

“I’m not,” said Kira.

“Leo was so kind as to help me with my French lessons. I was learning ... that is, brushing up on my French. It is such a relief, in these drab days, to stumble upon a person like Leo. You must forgive me, Leo. I realize that I may be an unwelcome guest, but it would be too much to expect of a woman if you asked her to give up a beautiful friendship in this revolting city where real people are so rare!”

“Why, no, Tonia, I’m glad you took the trouble to find me.”

“Ah, these people here! I know so many of them. We meet, we talk, we shake hands. What does it mean? Nothing. Nothing but an empty physical gesture. Who among them knows the deeper significance of the spirit or the real meaning of our lives?”

Leo’s slow, faint smile was not one of understanding; but he said: “One could forget one’s troubles in some engrossing activity — if it were permitted these days.”

“How profoundly true! Of course, the modern woman of culture is organically incapable of remaining inactive. I have a tremendous program outlined for myself for this coming winter. I’m going to study. I propose to master ancient Egypt.”

“What?” asked Kira.

“Ancient Egypt,” said Antonina Pavlovna. “I want to recapture its spirit in all its entirety. There is a profound significance in these far-away cultures, a mysterious bond with the present, which we moderns do not appreciate fully. I am certain that in a former incarnation ... You are not interested in theosophy, are you, Leo?”

“No.”

“I can appreciate your viewpoint, of course, but I have given it a thorough study and a great deal of thought. There is a transcendental truth in it, an explanation for so many of the baffling phenomena of our existence. Of course, I have one of those natures that long for the mystical. However, you must not think me old-fashioned. You mustn’t be surprised if I tell you that I’m studying political economy.”

“You are, Tonia? Why?”

“One cannot be out of tune with one’s time, you know. To criticize, we must understand. I find it surprisingly thrilling. There is a certain peculiar romance in labor and markets and machines. Apropos, have you read the latest volume of verse by Valentina Sirkina?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Thoroughly delightful. Such depth of emotion, and yet — completely modern, so essentially modern! There is a verse about — how does it go? — about my heart is asbestos that remains cool over the blast-furnace of my emotions — or something like that — it is really superb.”

“I must admit I don’t read modern poets.”

“I’ll bring you that book, Leo. I know you’ll understand and appreciate it. And I’m sure Kira Alexandrovna will enjoy it.”

“Thank you,” said Kira, “but I never read poetry.”

“Indeed? How peculiar! I’m sure you care for music?”

“Fox-trots,” said Kira.

“Really?” Antonina Pavlovna smiled condescendingly. When she smiled, her chin pointed further forward and her forehead slanted back; her lips opened slowly, uncomfortably, as if slithering apart. “Speaking of music,” she turned to Leo, “it is another essential item on my winter’s program. I’ve made Koko promise me a box for every concert at the State Philharmony. Poor Koko! He’s really very artistic at heart, if one knows how to approach him, but I’m afraid that his unfortunate early upbringing has not trained him for an appreciation of symphonic music. I shall, probably, have to be alone in my box. Oh — here’s a happy thought! — you may share it with me, Leo.... And Kira Alexandrovna, of course,” she nodded to Kira and turned to Leo again.

“Thank you, Tonia,” he answered, “but I’m afraid we won’t have much time for that, this winter.”

“Leo, my dear!” she spread her arms in a wide gesture of sympathy, “don’t you think I understand? Your financial position is.... Ah, these are not times for men like you. However, do not lose courage. With my connections ... Koko cannot refuse me anything. He hated to see me leave for the Crimea. He missed me so much — you wouldn’t believe how glad he was to see me back. He could not be more devoted if he were my husband. In fact, he couldn’t be as devoted as he is. Marriage is an outmoded prejudice — as you know.” She smiled at Kira.

“I’m sure the Crimea has helped your health,” Leo said hastily, coldly.

“Ah, there’s no other place like it! It is a bit of paradise. The dark, velvet sky, the diamond stars, the sea, and that divine moonlight! You know, I’ve wondered why you remained so indifferent to its magic spell. I thought you were essentially unromantic. Of course, I can understand the reason — now.”

She threw a swift glance at Kira. The glance froze, as if seized and held by Kira’s fixed eyes. Then Antonina Pavlovna’s lips slithered into a cold smile and she turned away, sighing: “You men are strange creatures. To understand you is a whole science in itself and the first duty of every real woman. I’ve mastered it thoroughly in the bitter classroom of experience!” She sighed wearily, with a deprecatory shrug. “I’ve known heroic officers of the White Army. I’ve known brutal, iron commissars.” She laughed shrilly. “I confess it openly. Why not? We are all moderns here.... I’ve known many people who misunderstood me. But I do not mind. I can forgive them. You know — noblesse oblige.”

Kira sat on the arm of a chair, watching the toes of her old slippers, studying her fingernails, while they talked. It was dark beyond the window, when Antonina Pavlovna glanced at a diamond-studded wristwatch.

“Oh, how late it is! It’s been so delightful that I haven’t noticed the time at all. I must hurry home. Koko is probably getting melancholy without me, the poor child.”

She opened her bag, took out a little mirror and, holding it delicately in two straight fingers, inspected her face carefully through narrowed eyes. She took out a little scarlet bottle with a tiny brush and smeared a purplish blot over her lips.

“Delightful stuff,” she explained, showing the bottle to Kira, “infinitely better than lipstick. I notice you don’t use much lipstick, Kira Alexandrovna. I would recommend it strongly. As woman to woman, one should never neglect one’s appearance, you know. Particularly,” she laughed, a friendly, intimate laughter, “particularly when one has such valuable property to guard.”

At the door in the lobby, Antonina Pavlovna turned to Leo: “Don’t worry about this coming winter, Leo. With my connections ... Koko, of course, knows the highest ... why, I’d be afraid to whisper some of the names he knows and ... of course, Koko is putty in my hands. You must meet him, Leo. We can do a lot for you. I shall see to it that a magnificent young man like you is not lost in this Soviet swamp.”

“Thank you, Tonia. I appreciate your offer. But I hope that I’m not quite lost — yet.”

“Just what is his position?” Kira asked suddenly.

“Koko? He’s assistant manager of the Food Trust — officially,” Antonina Pavlovna winked mysteriously with a brief chuckle, lowering her voice; then, waving a hand with a diamond that flashed a swift spark in the light of an electric bulb, she drawled: “Au revoir, mes amis. I shall see you soon.”

Slamming the chain over the door, Kira gasped: “Leo, I’m surprised!”

“By what?”

“That you can be acquainted with such an unspeakable ...”

“I do not presume to criticize your friends.”

They were passing through Marisha’s room. In a corner by the window, Marisha raised her head from her book and looked at Leo curiously, startled by the tone of his voice. They crossed the room and Leo slammed the door behind them.

“You could have been civil, at least,” he stated.

“What do you mean?”

“You could have said a couple of words — every other hour.”

“She didn’t come to hear me talk.”

“I didn’t invite her. And she’s not a friend of mine. You didn’t have to be so tragic about it.”

“But, Leo, where did you pick that up?”

“That was in the same sanatorium and it happened to have foreign books, which is a rare treat when you have to spend your days reading Soviet trash. That’s how we got acquainted. What’s wrong with that?”

“But, Leo, don’t you see what she’s after?”

“Of course I do. Are you really afraid she’ll get it?”

“Leo!”

“Well, then, why can’t I speak to her? She’s a harmless fool who’s trying to amount to something. And she really does have connections.”

“But to associate with that type of person....”

“She’s no worse than the Red trash one has to associate with, these days. And, at least, she’s not Red.”

“Well, as you wish.”

“Oh, forget it, Kira. She’ll never come again.”

He was smiling at her, suddenly, warmly, his eyes bright, as if nothing had happened, and she surrendered, her hands on his shoulders, whispering: “Leo, don’t you see? Nothing of that type should even dare to look at you.”

He laughed, patting her cheek: “Let her look. It won’t hurt me.”

Leo had said: “Write to your uncle in Budapest at once. Thank him and tell him not to send us money any longer. I’m well. We’ll struggle on our own. I have written down the exact sum of everything you sent me. Have you kept track of what you spent here, as I asked? We’ll have to start repaying him — if he’s patient, for the devil alone knows how long it will take.”

She had whispered: “Yes, Leo,” without looking at him.

He had noticed her gold wristwatch and frowned: “Where did that come from?”

She had said: “It’s a present. From ... Andrei Taganov.”

“Oh, really? So you’re accepting presents from him?”

“Leo!” She had whirled upon him defiantly, then she had pleaded: “Why not, Leo? It was my birthday and I couldn’t hurt his feelings.”

He had shrugged contemptuously: “Oh, I don’t mind. It’s your own business. Personally, I wouldn’t feel comfortable wearing something paid for with G.P.U. money.”

She had hidden the cigarette lighter, and the silk stockings, and the perfume. She had told Leo that the red dress had been made for his return. He wondered why she did not like to wear it.

She spent most of her days in the halls of the Winter Palace, saying to the gaping excursionists: “... and it is the duty of every conscientious citizen to be acquainted with the history of our revolutionary movement in order to become a trained, enlightened fighter in the ranks of the World Revolution — our highest goal.”

In the evenings, she tried to tell Leo: “I have to go out tonight. I’ve promised Irina ...” or: “I really must go out tonight. It’s a meeting of Excursion Workers.” But he made her stay at home.

She looked into the mirror, sometimes, and wondered about the eyes people had told her were so clear, so honest.

She did not go out at night. She could not tear herself away. She could not satisfy the hunger of looking at him, of sitting silently, huddled in an armchair, watching him move across the room. She would watch the lines of his body as he stood at a window, turned away from her, his hands spread on his waistline, holding his back, his body leaning lightly backward against his hands, one tense, sunburned muscle of his neck showing under dark, dishevelled hair, thrilling as a suggestion, a promise of his face which she could not see. Then she would rise and walk hesitantly toward him and let her hand run slowly down the hard tendon of his neck, without a word, without a kiss.

Then she could think, with a cold wonder, of another man who was waiting for her somewhere.

But she knew that she had to see Andrei. One evening, she put on the red dress and told Leo that she had promised to call on her family.

“May I go with you?” he asked. “I haven’t seen them since my return and I owe them a visit.”

“No, not this time, Leo,” she answered calmly. “I’d rather you wouldn’t. Mother is ... she’s so changed ... I know you won’t get along with her.”

“Do you have to go tonight, Kira? I hate to let you go and to stay here alone. I’ve been without you for such a long time.”

“I’ve promised them I’d come tonight. I won’t stay late. I’ll be back soon.”

She was putting on her coat when the door bell rang.

It was Marisha who went to open the door and they heard Galina Petrovna’s voice sweeping through the room, approaching: “Well, I’m glad they’re home. Well, if I thought they were visiting others and neglecting their old parents and ...”

Galina Petrovna entered first; Lydia followed; Alexander Dimitrievitch shuffled in behind them.

“Leo, my dear child!” Galina Petrovna swept toward him and kissed him on both cheeks. “I’m so glad to see you! Welcome back to Leningrad.”

Lydia shook hands limply; she removed her old hat, sat down heavily, as if collapsing, and fumbled with her hairpins: a long strand of hair was falling loosely out of the careless roll at the back of her neck. She was very pale and used no powder; her nose was shiny; she stared mournfully at the floor.

Alexander Dimitrievitch muttered: “I’m glad you’re well, my boy,” and patted Leo’s shoulder uncertainly, with the timid, frightened look of an animal expecting to be hurt.

Kira faced them calmly and said with cold assurance: “Why did you come? I was just starting for your house, as I promised.”

“As you ...” Galina Petrovna began, but Kira interrupted:

“Well, since you’re here, take your coats off.”

“I’m so happy you’re well again, Leo,” said Galina Petrovna. “I feel as if you were my son. You really are my son. Everything else is just bourgeois prejudices.”

“Mother!” Lydia remonstrated feebly, hopelessly.

Galina Petrovna settled down in a comfortable armchair. Alexander Dimitrievitch sat apologetically on the edge of a chair by the door.

“Thank you for coming,” Leo smiled graciously. “My only excuse for neglecting to call, as I should have, is ...”

“Kira,” Galina Petrovna finished for him. “Do you know that we haven’t seen her more than three times while you were away?”

“I have a letter for you, Kira,” Lydia said suddenly.

“A letter?” Kira’s voice jerked slightly.

“Yes. It came today.”

There was no return address on the envelope; but Kira knew the handwriting. She threw the letter indifferently down on the table.

“Don’t you want to open it?” Leo asked.

“No hurry,” she said evenly. “Nothing important.”

“Well, Leo?” Galina Petrovna’s voice boomed; her voice had become louder, clearer. “What are your plans for the winter? This is such an interesting year we’re entering. So many opportunities, particularly for the young.”

“So many ... what?” Leo asked.

“Such a wide field of activity! It’s not like in the dying, decadent cities of Europe where people slave all their lives for measly wages and a pitiful little existence. Here — each one of us has an opportunity to be a useful, creative member of a stupendous whole. Here — one’s work is not merely a wasted effort to satisfy one’s petty hunger, but a contribution to the gigantic building of humanity’s future.”

“Mother,” Kira asked, “who wrote all that down for you?”

“Really, Kira,” Galina Petrovna drew her shoulders up, “you’re not only impertinent to your mother, but I think you’re also a bad influence on Leo’s future.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that, Galina Petrovna,” said Leo.

“And of course, Leo, I hope that you’re modern enough to outlive the prejudices we’ve all shared. We must admit that the Soviet Government is the only progressive government in the world. It utilizes all its human resources. Even an old person like me, who has been useless all her life, can find an opportunity for creative toil. And as for young people like you ...”

“Where are you working, Galina Petrovna?” Leo asked.

“Oh, don’t you know? I’m teaching in a Labor School — they used to be called High Schools, you know. Sewing and fancy needlework. We all realize that a practical subject like sewing is much more important to our little future citizens than the dead, useless things, such as Latin, which were taught in the old bourgeois days. And our methods? We’re centuries ahead of Europe. For instance, take the complex method that we’re ...”

“Mother,” Lydia said wearily, “Leo may not be interested.”

“Nonsense! Leo is a modern young man. Now, this method we’re using at present.... For instance, what did they do in the old days? The children had to memorize mechanically so many dry, disjoined subjects — history, physics, arithmetic — with no connection between them at all. What do we do now? We have the complex method. Take last week, for instance. Our subject was Factory. So every teacher had to build his course around that central subject. In the history class they taught the growth and development of factories; in the physics class they taught all about machinery; the arithmetic teacher gave them problems about production and consumption; in the art class they drew factory interiors. And in my class — we made overalls and blouses. Don’t you see the advantage of the method? The indelible impression it will leave in the children’s minds? Overalls and blouses — practical, concrete, instead of teaching them a lot of dry, theoretical seams and stitches.”

Lydia’s head drooped listlessly; she had heard it all many times.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying your work, Galina Petrovna,” said Leo.

“I’m glad you get your rations,” said Kira.

“I do, indeed,” Galina Petrovna stated proudly. “Of course, our distribution of commodities has not as yet reached a level of perfection and, really, the sunflower-seed oil I got last week was so rancid we couldn’t use it ... but then, this is a transitional period of ...”

“... State Construction!” Alexander Dimitrievitch yelled suddenly, hastily, as a well-memorized lesson.

“And what are you doing, Alexander Dimitrievitch?” Leo asked.

“Oh, I’m working!” Alexander Dimitrievitch jerked as if ready to jump forward, as if defending himself hastily against a dangerous accusation. “Yes, I’m working. I’m a Soviet employee. I am.”

“Of course,” Galina Petrovna drawled, “Alexander’s position is not as responsible as mine. He’s a bookkeeper in a district office somewhere way on the Vasilievsky Island — such a long trip every day! — and just what kind of an office is it, Alexander? But, anyway, he does have a bread card — though he doesn’t get enough even for himself alone.”

“But I’m working,” Alexander Dimitrievitch said meekly.

“Of course,” said Galina Petrovna, “I get better ration cards because I’m in a preferred class of pedagogues. I’m very active socially. Why, do you know, Leo, that I’ve been elected assistant secretary of the Teachers’ Council? It is gratifying to know that the present regime appreciates qualities of leadership. I even gave a speech on the methodology of modern education at an inter-club meeting where Lydia played the ‘Internationale’ so beautifully.”

“Sure,” Lydia said mournfully, “the ‘Internationale.’ I’m working, too. Musical director and accompanist in a Workers’ Club. A pound of bread a week and carfare and, sometimes, money, what’s left after the contributions each month.”

“Lydia is not pliable,” sighed Galina Petrovna.

“But I play the ‘Internationale,’ ” said Lydia, “and the Red funeral march — ‘You fell as a victim’ — and the Club songs. I even got applauded when I played the ‘Internationale’ at the meeting where Mother made the speech.”

Kira rose wearily to make tea. She pumped the Primus and put the kettle on, and watched it thoughtfully — and through the hissing of the flame, Galina Petrovna’s voice boomed loudly, rhythmically, as if addressing a class: “... yes, twice, imagine? Two honorable mentions in our students’ Wall Newspaper, as one of the three most modern and conscientious pedagogues.... Yes, I do have some influence. When that insolent young teacher tried to run the school, she was dismissed fast enough. And you can be sure I had something to say about that....”

Kira did not hear the rest. She was watching the letter on the table, wondering. When she heard a voice again, it was Lydia’s and it was saying shrilly: “... spiritual consolation. I know. It has been revealed to me. There are secrets beyond our mortal minds. Holy Russia’s salvation will come from faith. It has been predicted. Through patience and long suffering shall we redeem our sins....”

Behind the door, Marisha wound her gramophone and played “John Gray.” It was a new record and the swift little notes jerked gaily, clicking in sharp, short knocks.

“John Gray

Was brave and daring,

Kitty

Was very pretty ...”

Kira sat, her chin in her hands, the glow of the Primus flame flickering under her nostrils, and she smiled suddenly, very softly, and said: “I like that song.”

“That awful, vulgar thing, so overplayed that I’m sick of it?” Lydia gasped.

“Yes.... Even if it is overplayed.... It has such a nice rhythm ... clicking ... like rivets driven into steel....” She was speaking softly, simply, a little helplessly, as she seldom spoke to her family. She raised her head and looked at them, and — they had never seen it before — her eyes were pleading and hurt.

“Still thinking of your engineering, aren’t you?” asked Lydia.

“Sometimes ...” Kira whispered.

“I can’t understand what’s wrong with you, Kira,” Galina Petrovna boomed. “You’re never satisfied. You have a perfectly good job, easy and well-paid, and you mope over some childish idea of yours. Excursion guides, like pedagogues, are considered no less important than engineers, these days. It is quite an honorary and responsible position, and contributes a great deal to social construction — and isn’t it more fascinating to build with living minds and ideologies rather than with bricks and steel?”

“It’s your own fault, Kira,” said Lydia. “You’ll always be unhappy since you refuse the consolation of faith.”

“What’s the use, Kira?” sighed Alexander Dimitrievitch.

“Who said anything about being unhappy?” Kira asked loudly, sharply, jerking her shoulders; she got up, took a cigarette and lighted it, bending, from the Primus flame.

“Kira has always been unmanageable,” said Galina Petrovna, “but one would think that these are times to make one come down to earth.”

“What are your plans for the winter, Leo?” Alexander Dimitrievitch asked, suddenly, indifferently, as if he expected no answer.

“None,” said Leo. “Nor for any winter to come.”

“I had a dream,” said Lydia, “about a crow and a hare. The hare crossed the road — and that’s an unlucky omen. But the crow sat on a tree that looked like a huge white chalice.”

“You take my nephew Victor, for instance,” said Galina Petrovna. “There’s a smart, modern young man. He’s graduating from the Institute this fall and he has an excellent job already. Supporting his whole family. Now there’s nothing sentimental about him. He has his eyes open to modern reality. He’ll go far, that boy.”

“But Vasili isn’t working,” Alexander Dimitrievitch remarked with a dull, quiet wonder.

“Vasili has never been practical,” stated Galina Petrovna.

Alexander Dimitrievitch said suddenly, irrelevantly: “It’s a pretty red dress you have, Kira.”

She smiled wearily: “Thank you, Father.”

“You don’t look so well, child. Tired?”

“No. Not particularly. I’m fine.”

Then Galina Petrovna’s voice drowned out the roar of the Primus: “... and, you know, it’s only the best teachers who are praised in the Wall Newspaper. Our students are very severe and ...”

Late at night, when the guests had gone, Kira took the letter into the bathroom and opened it. It contained two lines:

Kira dearest,

Please forgive me for writing. But won’t you telephone me? Andrei

She led two excursions on the following day. Coming home, she told Leo that she would be dismissed if she did not attend a guides’ meeting that evening. She put on her red dress. On the stair-landing, she kissed Leo lightly, as he stood watching her go: she waved to him, vaulting down the stairs, with a cold, gay chuckle. On a street corner, she opened her purse, took out the little French bottle and pressed a few drops of perfume into her hair. She leaped into a tramway at full speed and stood hanging onto a leather strap, watching the lights swim past. When she got off, she walked, lightly, swiftly, with a cold, precise determination, toward the palace that was a Party Club.

She ran soundlessly up the crumbling marble stairway of the pavilion. She knocked sharply at the door.

When Andrei opened the door, she laughed, kissing him: “I know, I know, I know.... Don’t say it ... I want to be forgiven first, and then I’ll explain.”

He whispered happily: “You’re forgiven. You don’t have to explain.”

She did not explain. She did not let him utter a complaint. She whirled around the room, and he tried to catch her, and the cloth of her coat felt cold in his hands, cold and fragrant of summer night air. He could whisper only: “Do you know that it’s been two weeks since ...” But he did not finish the sentence.

Then she noticed that he was dressed for the street. “Were you going out, Andrei?”

“Oh ... yes, I was, but it’s not important.”

“Where were you going?”

“Just to a Party Cell meeting.”

“A Party Cell meeting? And you say it’s not important? But you can’t miss that.”

“Yes, I can. I’m not going.”

“Andrei, I’d rather come tomorrow and let you ...”

“No.”

“Well, then, let’s go out together. Take me to the European roof.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes. Now.”

He did not want to refuse. She did not want to notice the look in his eyes.

They sat at a white table in the roof garden on top of the European Hotel. They sat in a dim corner, and they could see nothing of the long room but the naked white back of a woman a few tables away, with a little strand of golden hair curling at the nape of her neck, escaping from the trim, lustrous waves of her coiffure, with a little golden shadow between her shoulder blades, her long fingers holding a glass with a liquid the color of her hair, swaying slowly; and beyond the woman, beyond a haze of yellow lights and bluish, rippling smoke, an orchestra played fox-trots from “Bajadere,” and the violinists swayed to the rhythm of the golden glass.

Andrei said: “It’s been two weeks, Kira, and ... and you probably need it.” He slipped a roll of bills into her hand, his monthly salary.

She whispered, pushing it back, closing his fingers over the bills: “No, Andrei.... Thank you.... But I don’t need it. And ... and I don’t think I’ll need it again....”

“But ...”

“You see, I get so many excursions to lead, and Mother got more classes at the school, and we all have clothes and everything we need, so that ...”

“But, Kira, I want you to ...”

“Please, Andrei! Don’t let’s argue. Not about that.... Please.... Keep it.... If ... if I need it, I’ll tell you.”

“Promise?”

“Yes.”

The violins rumbled dully, heavily, and suddenly the music burst out like a firecracker, so that the swift, laughing notes could almost be seen as sparks shooting to the ceiling.

“You know,” said Kira, “I shouldn’t ask you to bring me here. It’s not a place for you. But I like it. It’s only a caricature and a very poor little one at that, but still it’s a caricature of what Europe is. Do you know that music they’re playing? It’s from ‘Bajadere.’ I saw it. They’re playing it in Europe, too. Like here ... almost like here.”

“Kira,” Andrei asked, “that Leo Kovalensky, is he in love with you or something?”

She looked at him, and the reflection of an electric light stood still as two sparks in her eyes and as a bright little oval on her patent leather collar. “Why do you ask that?”

“I saw your cousin, Victor Dunaev, at a club meeting and he told me that Leo Kovalensky was back, and he smiled as if the news should mean something to me. I didn’t even know that Kovalensky had been away.”

“Yes, he’s back. He’s been away somewhere in the Crimea, for his health, I think. I don’t know whether he’s in love with me, but Victor was in love with me once, and he’s never forgiven me for that.”

“I see. I don’t like that man.”

“Victor?”

“Yes. And Leo Kovalensky, too. I hope you don’t see him often. I don’t trust that type of man.”

“Oh, I see him occasionally.”

The orchestra had stopped playing.

“Andrei, ask them to play something for me. Something I like. It’s called the ‘Song of Broken Glass.’ ”

He watched her as the music burst out again, splattering sparks of sound. It was the gayest music he had ever heard; and he had never seen her look sad; but she sat, motionless, staring helplessly, her eyes forlorn, bewildered.

“It’s very beautiful, this music, Kira,” he whispered, “why do you look like that?”

“It’s something I liked ... long ago ... when I was a child.... Andrei, did you ever feel as if something had been promised to you in your childhood, and you look at yourself and you think ‘I didn’t know, then, that this is what would happen to me’ — and it’s strange, and funny, and a little sad?”

“No, I was never promised anything. There were so many things that I didn’t know, then, and it’s so strange to be learning them now.... You know, the first time I brought you here, I was ashamed to enter. I thought it was no place for a Party man. I thought ...” he laughed softly, apologetically, “I thought I was making a sacrifice for you. And now I like it.”

“Why?”

“Because I like to sit in a place where I have no reason to be, no reason but to sit and look at you across the table. Because I like those lights on your collar. Because you have a very stern mouth — and I like that — but when you listen to that music, your mouth is gay, as if it were listening, too. And all those things, they have no meaning for anyone on earth but me, and when I’ve lived a life where every hour had to have a purpose, and suddenly I discover what it’s like to feel things that have no purpose but myself, and I see suddenly how sacred a purpose that can be, so that I can’t even argue, I can’t doubt, I can’t fight it, and I know, then, that a life is possible whose only justification is my own joy — then everything, everything else suddenly seems very different to me.”

She whispered: “Andrei, you shouldn’t talk like that. I feel as if I were taking you away from your own life, from everything that has been your life.”

“Don’t you want to feel it?”

“But doesn’t it frighten you? Don’t you think sometimes that it may bring you to a choice you have no right to make?”

He answered with so quiet a conviction that the word sounded light, unconcerned, with a calm beyond earnestness: “No.” He leaned toward her across the table, his eyes serene, his voice soft and steady: “Kira, you look frightened. And, really, you know, it’s not a serious question. I’ve never had many questions to face in my life. People create their own questions, because they’re afraid to look straight. All you have to do is look straight and see the road, and when you see it, don’t sit looking at it — walk. I joined the Party because I knew I was right. I love you because I know I’m right. In a way, you and my work are the same. Things are really very simple.”

“Not always, Andrei. You know your road. I don’t belong on it.”

“That’s not in the spirit of what you taught me.”

She whispered helplessly: “What did I teach you?”

The orchestra was playing the “Song of Broken Glass.” No one sang it. Andrei’s voice sounded like the words of that music. He was saying: “You remember, you said once that we had the same root somewhere in both of us, because we both believed in life? It’s a rare capacity and it can’t be taught. And it can’t be explained to those in whom that word — life — doesn’t awaken the kind of feeling that a temple does, or a military march, or the statue of a perfect body. It is for that feeling that I joined a Party which, at the time, could lead me only to Siberia. It is for that feeling that I wanted to fight against the most senseless and useless of monsters standing in the way of human life — and that’s something we call now humanity’s politics. And so my own existence was only the fight and the future. You taught me the present.”

She made a desperate attempt. She said slowly, watching him: “Andrei, when you told me you loved me, for the first time, you were hungry. I wanted to satisfy that hunger.”

“And that’s all?”

“That’s all.”

He laughed quietly, so quietly that she had to give up. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Kira. Women like you don’t love only like that.”

“What are women like me?”

“What temples are, and military marches, and ...”

“Let’s have a drink, Andrei.”

“You want a drink?”

“Yes. Now.”

“All right.”

He ordered the drinks. He watched the glow of the glass at her lips, a long, thin, shivering line of liquid light between fingers that looked golden in its reflection. He said: “Let’s drink a toast to something I could never offer but in a place like this: to my life.”

“Your new life?”

“My only one.”

“Andrei, what if you lose it?”

“I can’t lose it.”

“But so many things can happen. I don’t want to hold your life in my hands.”

“But you’re holding it.”

“Andrei, you must think ... once in a while ... that it’s possible that ... What if anything should happen to me?”

“Why think about it?”

“But it’s possible.”

She felt suddenly as if the words of his answer were the links of a chain she would never be able to break: “It’s also possible for every one of us to have to face a death sentence some day. Does it mean that we have to prepare for it?”

IV

THEY LEFT THE ROOF GARDEN EARLY, AND Kira asked Andrei to take her home; she was tired; she did not look at him.

He said: “Certainly, dearest,” and called a cab, and let her sit silently, her head on his shoulder, while he held her hand and kept silent, not to disturb her.

He left her at her parents’ house. She waited on a dark stair-landing and heard his cab driving away; she waited longer; for ten minutes, she stood in the darkness, leaning against a cold glass pane; beyond the pane there was a narrow airshaft and a bare brick wall with one window; in the window, a yellow candle shivered convulsively and the huge shadow of a woman’s arm kept rising and falling, senselessly, monotonously.

After ten minutes, Kira walked downstairs and hurried to a tramway.

Passing through Marisha’s room, she heard a stranger’s voice behind the door of her own room, a slow, deep, drawling voice that paused carefully, meticulously on every letter “o” and then rolled on as if on buttered hinges. She threw the door open.

The first person she saw was Antonina Pavlovna in a green brocaded turban, pointing her chin forward inquisitively; then she saw Leo; then she saw the man with the drawling voice — and her eyes froze, while he lumbered up, throwing at her a swift glance of appraisal and suspicion.

“Well, Kira, I thought you were spending the night with the excursion guides. And you said you’d be back early,” Leo greeted her sharply, while Antonina Pavlovna drawled:

“Good evening, Kira Alexandrovna.”

“I’m sorry. I got away as soon as I could,” Kira answered, her eyes staring at the stranger’s face.

“Kira, may I present? Karp Karpovitch Morozov — Kira Alexandrovna Argounova.”

She did not notice that Karp Karpovitch’s big fist was shaking her hand. She was looking at his face. His face had large blond freckles, light, narrow eyes, a heavy red mouth and a short nose with wide, vertical nostrils. She had seen it twice before; she remembered the speculator of the Nikolaevsky station, the food trader of the market.

She stood without removing her coat, without saying a word, cold with a feeling of sudden, inexplicable panic.

“What’s the matter, Kira?” Leo asked.

“Leo, haven’t we met Citizen Morozov before?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“Never had the pleasure, Kira Alexandrovna,” Morozov drawled, his eyes at once shrewd and naïve and complacently friendly.

While Kira was removing her coat slowly, he turned to Leo: “And the store, Lev Sergeievitch, we’ll have it in the neighborhood of the Kouznetzky market. Best neighborhood. I have my eyes on a vacant store — just what we need. One window, narrow room — not many square meters to pay for — and I slipped a couple of tens to the Upravdom, and he’ll let us have a good, big basement thrown in — just what we need. I can take you there tomorrow, you’ll be most pleased.”

Kira’s coat dropped to the floor. A lamp stood on the table; in its glow, she could see Morozov’s face leaning toward Leo’s, his slow words muffled on his heavy lips to a sly, guilty whisper. She stared at Leo. He was not looking at her; his eyes were cold, widened slightly by a strange eagerness. She stood in the semi-darkness, beyond the circle of lamp light. The men paid no attention to her. Antonina Pavlovna threw a slow, expressionless glance at her and turned to the table, flicking ashes off her cigarette.

“How’s the Upravdom?” Leo asked.

“Couldn’t be better,” Morozov chuckled. “A friendly fellow, easy-going and ... practical. A few ten-ruble bills and some vodka once in a while — with careful handling, he won’t cost us much. I told him to have the store cleaned for you. And we’ll order new signs — ‘Lev Kovalensky. Food Products.’ ”

“What are you talking about?” Kira threw the words at Morozov with the violence of a slap in the face. She stood over him, the lamp light scattering broken shadows across her face. Morozov leaned away from her, closer to the table, startled.

“It’s a little business deal we’re discussing, Kira Alexandrovna,” he explained in a soft, conciliating drawl.

“I’ve promised you that Koko would do a great deal for Leo,” Antonina Pavlovna smiled.

“Kira, I’ll explain later,” Leo said slowly. The words were a command.

Silently, she pulled a chair to the table and sat facing Morozov, leaning forward on her crossed elbows. Morozov continued, trying not to look at her fixed eyes that seemed to register his every word: “You understand the advantage of the arrangement, Lev Sergeievitch. A private trader is no easy title to bear these days. Consider the rent on your living quarters, for instance. That alone could swallow all the profits. Now if we say you’re the sole owner — well, the rent won’t be so much since you have just this one room here to pay for. Now me, for instance, we have three large rooms, Tonia and me, and if they brand me a private trader — Good Lord Almighty! — the rent on that will wreck the whole business.”

“That’s all right,” said Leo. “I’ll carry it. I don’t mind if I’m called private trader or Nicholas II or Mephistopheles.”

“That’s it,” Morozov chuckled too loudly, his chin and stomach shaking. “That’s it. And, Lev Sergeievitch, sir, you won’t regret it. The profits — Lord bless us! — the profits will make the old what-they-called-bourgeois look like beggars. With our little scheme, we’ll sweep in the rubles, easy as picking ’em off the street. A year or two and we’re our own masters. A few hundreds slipped where necessary and we can fly abroad — to Paris, or Nice or Monte Carlo, or any of the foreign places that are pleasant and artistic.”

“Yes,” said Leo wearily. “Abroad.” Then he shook his head, as if breaking off an unbearable thought, and turned imperiously, throwing orders to the man who was hiring him: “But that friend of yours — the Communist — that’s the danger point of the whole scheme. Are you sure of him?”

Morozov spread his fat arms wide, shaking his head gently, reproachfully, his smile as soothing as Vaseline: “Lev Sergeievitch, soul of mine, you don’t think I’m a helpless babe making my first steps in business, do you? I’m as sure of him as of the eternal salvation of our souls, that’s how sure I am. He’s as smart a young man as ever you could hope to find. Quick and reasonable. And not one of those windbags that like to hear themselves talk. He’s not aiming to get nothing but big words and dried herring out of his life, no, sir. He knows when he has bread and butter in his hands — and he won’t let it slip through. And then again, he’s the one who takes the big chance. One of us common folks, if caught, might wiggle out with ten years in Siberia, but for one of them Party men — it’s the firing squad and no time to say good-bye.”

“You don’t have to worry, Leo,” Antonina Pavlovna smiled, “I’ve met the young man. We entertained him at a little tea — champagne and caviar, to be exact. He is smart and thoroughly dependable. You can have absolute faith in Koko’s business judgment.”

“And it’s not so difficult for him, either,” Morozov lowered his voice to a barely audible whisper. “He’s got one of those engineering positions with the railroad — and he’s got pull in all directions, like a river with tributaries. All he has to do is see that the food shipment is damaged a bit — dropped accidentally, or dampened a little, or something — and see that it’s pronounced worthless. That’s all. The rest is simple. The shipment goes quietly to the basement of our little store — ‘Lev Kovalensky. Food Products.’ Nothing suspicious in that — is there? — just supplies for the store. The State co-operatives are short a load of stuff and the good citizens get nothing on their ration cards but an excuse and a promise. We wait a couple of weeks and we break up the load and ship it to our own customers — private dealers all over three provinces, a whole net of them, reasonable and discreet — I have all the addresses. And that’s all. Who has to know? If anyone comes snooping around the store — well, we’ll have some punk clerk there and he’ll sell them half a pound of butter if they ask for it, and that’s all we’re doing, for all they know — retail trade — open and legal.”

“And furthermore ...” Antonina Pavlovna whispered, “if anything should go wrong, that young Communist has ...”

“Yes,” Morozov whispered, and looked around furtively, and paused to listen for any suspicious sound from behind the door, and, reassured, murmured, his lips at Leo’s ear: “He has connections in the G.P.U. A powerful friend and protector. I’d be scared to mention the name.”

“Oh, we’ll be safe from that quarter,” Leo said contemptuously, “if we have enough money.”

“Money? Why, Lev Sergeievitch, soul of mine, we’ll have so much money you’ll be rolling ten-ruble bills to make cigarettes. We split it three ways, you understand; me, yourself and the Communist pal. We’ll have to slip a little to his friends at the railroad, and to the Upravdom, and we’ll pay your rent here — that’ll go under expenses. But then you must remember that on the face of it, you’re the sole owner. It’s your store, in your name. I have my position with the State Food Trust to think about. If I had a private store registered to my name, they’d kick me out. And I’ve got to keep that job. You can see how useful it will be to us.”

He winked at Leo. Leo did not smile in answer, but said: “You don’t have to worry. I’m not afraid.”

“Then, it’s settled, eh? Why, pal, in a month from now you won’t believe you ever lived like this. You’ll put some flesh on those sunken cheeks of yours, and some pretty clothes on Kira Alexandrovna, and a diamond bracelet or two, and then maybe a motor-car and ...”

“Leo, are you insane?”

Kira’s chair clattered against the wall, and the lamp rocked and settled, shivering with a thin, glassy tinkle. She stood, the three startled faces turned to her.

“This isn’t a joke you’re playing on me, is it? Or have you lost your mind entirely?”

Leo leaned back slowly, looking straight at her, and asked coldly: “When did you assume the privilege of talking to me like that?”

“Leo! If that’s a new way of committing suicide, there are much simpler ones!”

“Really, Kira Alexandrovna, you are unnecessarily tragic about it,” Antonina Pavlovna remarked coolly.

“Now, now, Kira Alexandrovna, soul of mine,” Morozov said amicably, “sit down and calm yourself and let’s talk it over quietly. There’s nothing to be excited about.”

She cried: “Leo, don’t you see what they’re doing? You’re nothing but a living screen for them! They’re investing money. You’re investing your life!”

“I’m glad to find some use for it,” Leo said evenly.

“Leo, listen, I’ll be calm. Here. I’ll sit down. Listen to me: you don’t want to do a thing like that with your eyes closed. Look at it, think it over: you know how hard life is these days. You don’t want to make it harder, do you? You know the government we’re facing. It’s difficult enough to keep from under its wheels. Do you want to invite it to grind you? Don’t you know that it’s the firing squad for anyone caught in a crooked, criminal speculation?”

“I believe Leo has made it clear that he did not need advice,” said Antonina Pavlovna, holding her cigarette poised gracefully in mid-air.

“Kira Alexandrovna,” Morozov protested, “why use such strong names for a simple business proposition which is perfectly permissible and almost legal and ...”

“You keep quiet,” Leo interrupted him and turned to Kira. “Listen, Kira, I know that this is as rotten and crooked a deal as could be made. And I know I’m taking a chance on my life. And I still want to do it. You understand?”

“Even if I begged you not to?”

“Nothing you can say will change things. It’s a filthy, low, disgraceful business. Certainly. But who forced me into it? Do you think I’ll spend the rest of my life crawling, begging for a job, starving, dying slowly? I’ve been back two weeks. Have I found work? Have I found a promise of work? So they shoot food speculators? Why don’t they give us a chance at something else? You don’t want me to risk my life. And what is my life? I have no career. I have no future. I couldn’t do what Victor Dunaev is doing if I were boiled in oil for punishment! I’m not risking much when I risk my life.”

“Lev Sergeievitch, soul of mine,” Morozov sighed with admiration, “how you can talk!”

“You two can go now,” Leo ordered. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Morozov, and we’ll look at the store.”

“Indeed, Leo, I’m surprised,” Antonina Pavlovna remarked, rising with dignity. “If you let yourself be influenced and do not seem to be gracious about appreciating an opportunity, when I thought you’d be grateful and ...”

“Who’s to be grateful?” he threw at her sharply, rudely. “You need me and I need you. It’s a business deal. That’s all.”

“Sure, sure, that’s what it is,” said Morozov, “and I appreciate your help, Lev Sergeievitch. It’s all right, Tonia, soul of mine, you come along now and we’ll settle all the details tomorrow.”

He spread his legs wide apart and got up with effort, his hands leaning on his knees. His heavy stomach shivered when he moved, making his body seem uncomfortably close and apparent under the wrinkles of his suit.

At the door, he turned to Leo: “Well, Lev Sergeievitch, shall we shake on it? We can’t sign a contract, of course, you understand, but we’ll depend on your word.”

His mouth arched contemptuously, Leo extended his hand, as if the gesture were a victory over himself. Morozov shook it warmly, lengthily — and bowed low, in the old peasant manner, on his way out. Antonina Pavlovna followed without looking at Kira.

Leo accompanied them to the lobby. When he came back, Kira still stood as he had left her. He said before she had turned to him: “Kira, we won’t argue about it.”

“There’s only one thing, Leo,” she whispered, “and I couldn’t say it in front of them. You said you had nothing left in life. I thought you had ... me.”

“I haven’t forgotten it. And that’s one of the reasons for what I’m doing. Listen, do you think I’m going to live off you for the rest of my days? Do you think I’m going to stand by and watch you dragging excursions and swallowing soot over the Primus? That fool Antonina doesn’t have to lead excursions. She wouldn’t wear your kind of dresses to scrub floors in — only she doesn’t have to scrub floors. Well, you won’t have to, either. You poor little fool! You don’t know what life can be. You’ve never seen it. But you’re going to see it. And I’m going to see it before they finish me. Listen, if I knew for certain that it’s the firing squad in six months — I’d still do it!”

She leaned against the table, because she felt faint. She whispered: “Leo, if I begged you, for all of my love for you, for all of yours, if I told you that I’d bless every hour of every excursion, every floor I’d scrub, every demonstration I’d have to attend, and every Club, and every red flag — if only you wouldn’t do this — would you still do it?”

He answered: “Yes.”

Citizen Karp Morozov met Citizen Pavel Syerov in a restaurant. They sat at a table in a dark corner. Citizen Morozov ordered cabbage soup. Citizen Syerov ordered tea and French pastry. Then Citizen Morozov leaned forward and whispered through the soup steam: “All settled, Pavlusha. I got the man. Saw him yesterday.”

Pavel Syerov held his cup at his lips, and his pale mouth barely moved, so that Morozov guessed rather than heard the question: “Who?”

“Lev Kovalensky is the name. Young. Hasn’t got a brass coin in the world and doesn’t give a damn. Desperate. Ready for anything.”

The white lips formed without sound: “Dependable?”

“Thoroughly.”

“Easy to handle?”

“Like a child.”

“Will keep his mouth shut?”

“Like a tomb.”

Morozov unloaded a heavy spoonful of cabbage into his mouth; one strand remained hanging out; he drew it in with a resounding smack. He leaned closer and breathed: “Besides, he’s got a social past. Father executed for counter-revolution. In case of anything ... he’ll be the right person to blame. A treacherous aristocrat, you know.”

Syerov whispered: “All right.” His spoon cut into a chocolate éclair, and a soft, yellow custard spurted, spreading over his plate. He hissed through white lips, low, even sounds without expression: “Now listen here. I want my share in advance — on every load. I don’t want any delays. I don’t want to ask twice.”

“So help me God, Pavlusha, you’ll get it, you don’t have to tell me, you ...”

“And another thing, I want caution. Understand? Caution. From now on, you don’t know me, see? If we meet by chance — we’re strangers. Antonina delivers the money to me in that whorehouse, as agreed.”

“Sure. Sure. I remember everything, Pavlusha.”

“Tell that Kovalensky bum to keep away. I don’t want to meet him.”

“Sure. You don’t have to.”

“Got the store?”

“Renting it today.”

“All right. Now sit still. I go first. You sit here for twenty minutes. Understand?”

“Sure. The Lord bless us.”

“Keep that for yourself. Good day.”

A secretary sat at a desk in the office of the railroad terminal. She sat behind a low wooden railing and typed, concentrating intently, drawing her upper lip in and biting her lower one. In front of the railing, there was an empty stretch of unswept floor and two chairs; six visitors waited patiently, two of them sitting. A door behind the secretary was marked: “Comrade Syerov.”

Comrade Syerov returned from lunch. He strode swiftly through the outer office, his tight, shiny military boots creaking. The six heads of the visitors jerked anxiously, following him with timid, pleading glances. He crossed the room as if it were empty. The secretary followed him into his inner office.

A picture of Lenin hung on the wall of the inner office, over a broad, new desk; it hung between a diagram showing the progress of the railroads, and a sign with red letters saying: COMRADES, STATE YOUR BUSINESS BRIEFLY. PROLETARIAN EFFICIENCY IS THE DISCIPLINE OF PEACE-TIME REVOLUTIONARY CONSTRUCTION.

Pavel Syerov took a flat, gold cigarette case from his pocket, lighted a cigarette, sat down at the desk and looked through a stack of papers. The secretary stood waiting diffidently.

Then he raised his head and asked: “What’s doing?”

“There are those citizens outside, Comrade Syerov, waiting to see you.”

“What about?”

“Mostly jobs.”

“Can’t see anyone today. Got to hurry to the Club meeting in half-an-hour. Have you typed my Club report on ‘Railroads as the blood vessels of the Proletarian State’?”

“Yes, Comrade Syerov. Here it is.”

“Fine.”

“Those citizens out there, Comrade Syerov, they’ve been waiting for three hours.”

“Tell them to go to hell. They can come tomorrow. If anything important comes up, call me at the Railroad Workers’ Union headquarters. I’ll be there after the Club.... And, by the way, I’ll be in late tomorrow.”

“Yes, Comrade Syerov.”

Pavel Syerov walked home from the Railroad Workers’ Union headquarters, with a Party friend. Syerov was in a cheerful mood. He whistled merrily and winked at passing girls. He said: “Think I’m going to throw a party tonight. Haven’t had any fun for three weeks. Feel like dissipating. What do you say?”

“Swell,” said the friend.

“Just a little crowd, our own bunch. At my place?”

“Swell.”

“I know a fellow who can get vodka — the real stuff. And let’s go to Des Gourmets and buy up everything they have in the joint.”

“I’m with you, pal.”

“Let’s celebrate.”

“What’ll we celebrate?”

“Never mind. Just celebrate. And we don’t have to worry about expenses. Hell! I’m not worrying about expenses when I want a good time.”

“That’s right, comrade.”

“Whom’ll we call? Let’s see: Grishka and Maxim, with their girls.”

“And Lizaveta.”

“Sure, I’ll call your Lizaveta. And Valka Dourova — there’s a girl! — she’ll bring half a dozen fellows along. And, I guess, Victor Dunaev with his girl, Marisha Lavrova. Victor’s a nit that’s going to be a big louse some day — have to keep on the good side of him. And ... say, pal, do you think I should invite Comrade Sonia?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“Oh, hell. That cow’s after me. Has been for over a year. Trying to make me. And I’ll be damned if I ... No appetite.”

“But then, Pavlusha, you’ve got to be careful. If you hurt her feelings, with Comrade Sonia’s position ...”

“I know. Hell! Two profunions and five women’s clubs wrapped around her little finger. Oh, hell! Oh, all right. I’ll call her.”

Pavel Syerov had pulled the curtains down over the three windows of his room. One of the girls had draped an orange scarf over the lamp, and it was almost dark. The guests’ faces were whitish blots strewn over the chairs, the davenport, the floor. In the middle of the floor stood a dish with a chocolate cake from Des Gourmets; someone had stepped on the cake. A broken bottle lay on the pillow of Syerov’s bed; Victor and Marisha sat on the bed. Victor’s hat lay on the floor by the davenport; it was being used as an ashtray. A gramophone played “John Gray”; the record was stuck, whirling, repeating persistently the same hoarse, grating notes; no one noticed it. A young man sat on the floor, leaning against a bed post, trying to sing; he muttered a tuneless, mournful chant into his collar; once in a while, he jerked his head up and screeched a high note, so that the others shuddered and someone flung a shoe or a pillow at him, yelling: “Grishka, shut up!” then his head drooped again. A girl lay in a corner, by the cuspidor, asleep, her hair glued in sticky strands to a glistening, flushed face.

Pavel Syerov staggered across the room, waving an empty bottle, muttering in an offended, insistent voice: “A drink.... Who wants a drink? ... Doesn’t anyone want a drink? ...”

“Hell, Pavel, your bottle’s empty ...” someone called from the darkness.

He stopped, swaying, held the bottle up to the light, spat, and threw the bottle under the bed. “So you think I haven’t any more?” he waved his fist menacingly at the room. “Think I’m a piker, don’t you? ... A measly piker who can’t afford enough vodka? ... A measly piker, that’s what you think, don’t you? ... Well, I’ll show you....”

He fumbled in a box under the table and rose, swaying, brandishing an unopened bottle over his head. He laughed: “I can’t afford it, can I?” and reeled toward the corner from where the voice had come. He giggled at the white spots that turned to look up at him; he swung the bottle in a huge circle and brought it down to smash with a ringing blast against a book case. A girl screamed; glass splattered in a tinkling rain. A man swore violently.

“My stockings, Pavel, my stockings!” the girl sobbed, pulling her skirt high over drenched legs.

A man’s arms reached for her from the darkness: “Never mind, sweetheart. Take ’em off.”

Syerov giggled triumphantly: “So I can’t afford it, can I? ... Can I? ... Pavel Syerov can afford anything now! ... Anything on this God-damn earth! ... He can buy you all, guts and souls!”

Someone had crawled under the table and was fumbling in the box, looking for more bottles.

A hand knocked at the door.

“Come in!” roared Syerov. No one came in. The hand knocked again. “What the hell? What do you want?” He tottered to the door and threw it open.

His next-door neighbor, a fat, pallid woman, stood in the corridor, shivering in a long, flannel nightgown, clutching an old shawl over her shoulders, brushing strands of gray hair out of her sleepy eyes.

“Citizen Syerov,” she whined with indignation, “won’t you please stop that noise? At such an indecent hour ... you young people have no shame left these days ... no fear of God ... no ...”

“On your way, grandma, on your way!” Syerov ordered. “You crawl under your pillow and keep your damn mouth shut. Or would you like to take a ride to the G.P.U.?”

The woman wheeled about hastily and shuffled away, making the sign of the cross.

Comrade Sonia sat in a corner by the window, smoking. She wore a tailored khaki tunic with pockets on her hips and breast; it was made of expensive foreign cloth, but she kept dropping ashes on her skirt. A girl’s voice pleaded in a plaintive whisper at her elbow: “Say, Sonia, why did you have Dashka fired from the office? She needed the job, she did, and honest ...”

“I do not discuss business matters outside of office hours,” Comrade Sonia answered coldly. “Besides, my actions are always motivated by the good of the collective.”

“Oh, sure, I don’t doubt it, but, listen, Sonia....”

Comrade Sonia noticed Pavel Syerov swaying at the door. She rose and walked to him, cutting the girl off in the middle of a sentence.

“Come here, Pavel,” said Comrade Sonia, her strong arm supporting him, leading him to a chair. “You’d better sit down. Here. Let me make you comfortable.”

“You’re a pal, Sonia,” he muttered, while she stuffed a pillow between his shoulder blades, “you’re a real pal. Now you wouldn’t holler at me if I made a little noise, would you?”

“Of course not.”

“You don’t think that I can afford a little vodka, like some skunks here think, do you, Sonia?”

“Of course not, Pavel. Some people don’t know how to appreciate you.”

“That’s it. That’s just the trouble. I’m not appreciated. I’m a great man. I’m going to be a very great man. But they don’t know it. No one knows it.... I’m going to be a very, very powerful man. I’m going to make the foreign capitalists look like mice.... That’s what: mice.... I’m going to give orders to Comrade Lenin himself.”

“Pavel, our great chief is dead.”

“That’s right. So he is. Comrade Lenin’s dead.... Oh, what’s the use? ... I’ve got to have a drink, Sonia. I feel very sad. Comrade Lenin’s dead.”

“That’s very nice of you, Pavel. But you’d better not have another drink just now.”

“But I’m very sad, Sonia. No one appreciates me.”

“I do, Pavel.”

“You’re a pal. You’re a real, real pal, Sonia....”

On the bed, Victor held Marisha in his arms. She giggled, counting the buttons on his tunic; she lost count after the third one and started over again. She was whispering: “You’re a gentleman, Victor, that’s what you are, a gentleman.... That’s why I love you, because you’re a gentleman.... And I’m only a gutter brat. My mother, she was a cook before ... before.... Well, anyway, before. I remember, many, many years ago, she used to work in a big, big house, they had horses and carriages and a bathroom, and I used to peel vegetables for her, in their kitchen. And there was an elegant young man, their son, oh, he had such pretty uniforms and he spoke all sorts of foreign languages, he looked just like you. And I didn’t even dare to look at him. And now I have a gentleman of my own,” she giggled happily, “isn’t it funny? I, Marishka the vegetable peeler!”

Victor said: “Oh, shut up!” and kissed her, his head drooping sleepily.

A girl giggled, standing over them in the darkness: “When are you two going to get registered at the marriage office?”

“Go ’way,” Marisha waved at her. “We’ll be registered. We’re engaged.”

Comrade Sonia had pulled a chair close to Syerov’s, and he sprawled, his head on her lap, while she stroked his hair. He was muttering: “You’re a rare woman, Sonia.... You’re a wonderful woman.... You understand me....”

“I do, Pavel. I’ve always said that you were the most talented, the most brilliant young man in our collective.”

“You’re a wonderful woman, Sonia.” He was kissing her, moaning: “No one appreciates me.”

He had pulled her down to the floor, leaning over her soft, heavy body, whispering: “A fellow needs a woman.... A smart, understanding, strong and hefty woman.... Who cares for those skinny scarecrows? ... I like a woman like you, Sonia....”

He did not know how he found himself suddenly in the little storage closet between his room and that of his neighbors. A cobwebbed window high under the ceiling threw a dusty ray of moonlight on a towering pile of boxes and baskets. He was leaning against Comrade Sonia’s shoulder, stammering: “They think Pavel Syerov’s just gonna be another stray mongrel eating outta slop pails all his life.... Well, I’ll show ’em! Pavel Syerov’ll show ’em who’s got the whip.... I’ve got a secret ... a great secret, Sonia.... But I can’t tell you.... But I’ve always liked you, Sonia.... I’ve always needed a woman like you, Sonia ... soft and comfortable....”

When he tried to stretch himself on the flat top of a large wicker basket, the piled tower shuddered, swayed and came down with a thundering crash. The neighbors knocked furiously, protesting, against the wall.

Comrade Sonia and Pavel Syerov, on the floor, paid no attention.

V

THE CLERK WIPED HIS NOSE WITH THE back of his hand and wrapped a pound of butter in a newspaper. He had cut the butter from a soggy, yellow circle that stood on a wooden barrel top on the counter before him; he wiped the knife on his apron that had once been white. His pale eyes watered; his lips were a concavity on a crumpled face; his long chin hovered uncomfortably over a counter too high for the wizened skeleton under his old blue sweater. He sniffled and, showing two broken, blackened teeth, grinned at the pretty customer in the blue hat trimmed with cherries:

“Best butter in town, citizen, very best butter in town.”

On the counter stood a pyramid of square bread loaves, dusty black and grayish white. Above the counter hung a fringe of salami, bagels and dried mushrooms. Flies hovered at the greasy brass bowls of old weighing scales and crawled up the dusty panes of a single, narrow window. Over the window, smeared by the first rain of September, hung a sign:

LEV KOVALENSKY. FOOD PRODUCTS

The customer threw some silver coins on the counter and took her package. She was turning to go when she stopped involuntarily, for a brief, startled moment, looking at the young man who had entered. She did not know that he was the owner of the store; but she knew that she could not have many occasions to see that kind of young man on the streets of Petrograd. Leo wore a new, foreign overcoat with a belt pulled tightly across his trim, slender waistline; he wore a gray foreign felt hat, one side of its brim turned up over an arrogant profile with a cigarette held in the corner of his mouth by two long, straight fingers in a tight, glistening, foreign leather glove. He moved with the swift, confident, unconscious grace of a body that seemed born for these clothes, like the body of an animal for its regal fur, like the body of a foreign fashion plate.

The girl looked straight at him, softly, defiantly. He answered with a glance that was an invitation, and a mocking insult, and almost a promise. Then he turned and walked to the counter, as she went out slowly.

The clerk bowed low, so that his chin touched the circle of butter: “Good day, Lev Sergeievitch, good day, sir.”

Leo flicked the ashes off his cigarette into an empty can on the counter and asked: “Any cash in the register?”

“Yes, sir, can’t complain, business was good today, sir, and ...”

“Let me have it.”

The man’s gnarled hand fingered his chin uncertainly; he muttered: “But, sir, Karp Karpovitch said last time you ...”

“I said let me have it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Leo stuffed the bills carelessly into his wallet. He asked, lowering his voice: “Did that shipment arrive last night?”

The clerk nodded, blinking confidentially, with an intimate little giggle. “Shut up,” said Leo. “And be careful.”

“Why, yes, sir, yes indeed, sir, you know I’m the soul of discretion, as they say in society, if I may say so, sir. Karp Karpovitch knows that he can trust a loyal old servant who has worked for him for ...”

“You could use some flypaper here once in a while.”

“Yes, sir, I ...”

“I won’t be in again today. Keep the store open till the usual hour.”

“Yes, sir. Good day, sir.”

Leo walked out without answering.

On the corner, the girl in the blue hat rimmed with cherries was waiting for him. She smiled hopefully, uncertainly. He hesitated for a second; then he smiled and turned away; his smile spread a flush of red on the cheeks and nose under the blue brim. But she stood, watching him jump into a cab and drive away.

He drove to the Alexandrovsky market. He walked swiftly past the old wares spread on the sidewalk, ignoring the eager, pleading eyes of their owners. He stopped at a little booth displaying porcelain vases, marble clocks, bronze candlesticks, a priceless loot that had found its way from some demolished palace into the dusty twilight of the market.

“I want something for a gift,” he threw at the clerk who bowed solicitously. “A wedding gift.”

“Yes, indeed,” the clerk bowed. “Ah ... for your bride, sir?”

“Certainly not. For a friend.”

He looked indifferently, contemptuously at the delicate, cracked dusty treasures that should have reposed on velvet cushions in a museum showcase.

“I want something better,” he ordered.

“Yes, indeed, sir,” the clerk bowed, “something beautiful for a beloved friend.”

“No. For someone I hate.” He pointed at a vase of blue and gold porcelain in a corner. “What’s that?”

“Ah, sir, that!” The clerk reached timidly for the vase and brought it slowly, cautiously to the counter; its price had made him hesitate to show it even to a customer in a foreign overcoat. “Genuine Sèvres, sir,” he whispered, brushing cobwebs out of the vase, upturning it to show the delicate mark on the bottom. “A royal object, sir,” he breathed, “a truly royal object.”

“I’ll take it,” said Leo.

The clerk swallowed and fumbled at his tie, watching the wallet in the gloved fingers of a customer who had not even asked the price.

“Comrades, in these days of peaceful State Construction, the workers of Proletarian culture are the shock battalion in the vanguard of the Revolution. The education of the Worker-Peasant masses is the great problem of our Red weekdays. We, excursion leaders, are a part of the great peace-time army of educators, imbued with the practical methodology of historical materialism, attuned to the spirit of Soviet reality, dedicated to ...”

Kira sat in the ninth row, on a chair that threatened to fold under her at any moment. The meeting of excursion guides was coming to an end. Around her, heads drooped wearily and eyes looked furtively, hopefully at a large clock on the wall, over the speaker’s head. But Kira tried to listen; she held her eyes fixed on the speaker’s mouth to catch every word; she wished the words were louder. But the words could not drown out the voices ringing in her mind: a voice over the telephone, pleading, trying not to sound pleading: “Kira, why do I see you so seldom?”; an imperious voice in the darkness of her room at night: “What are those visits of yours, Kira? You said you were at Irina’s yesterday. But you weren’t.” How long could she keep it up? She had not seen Andrei for three weeks.

The chairs around her clattered; the meeting was over. She hurried down the stairway. She was saying to a fellow guide: “... yes, a splendid speech. Of course, our cultural duty to the proletariat is our primary goal ...” It was easy to say. It was easy, after she had looked straight at Leo and laughed: “Leo, why those foolish questions? Don’t you trust me?” pressing her hand to her breast to hide the mark of Andrei’s teeth.

She hurried home. In Marisha’s room, two trunks and a wicker basket stood in the middle of the floor; empty drawers gaped open; posters were torn off the walls and piled on the trunks. Marisha was not at home.

In Kira’s room, a maid hurried from the hissing Primus by the window to take her coat.

“Leo hasn’t returned yet, has he?” Kira asked.

“No, ma’am.”

Kira’s coat was old, with rubbed patches on the elbows. Her dress had grease stains on the collar and threads hanging out of its frayed hem. With one swift movement, Kira pulled it off over her head and threw it to the maid, shaking her dishevelled hair. Then she fell on the bed, kicking off her old shoes with run-down heels, tearing off her darned, cotton stockings. The maid knelt by the bed, pulling thin silk stockings up Kira’s slender legs, slipping delicate, high-heeled pumps on her feet; then she rose to help her into a trim dark woolen dress. The maid put the old coat and shoes into a wardrobe that contained four new coats and six pairs of new shoes.

But Kira had to keep her job for the protection of the title of Soviet employee; and she had to wear her old clothes to protect her job.

An extravagant bouquet of white lilies, Leo’s latest gift, stood on the table. The white petals had caught a few specks of soot from the Primus. Kira had a maid, but no kitchen. The maid came for five hours every day and cooked their meals on the Primus by the window.

Leo came home, carrying the Sèvres vase wrapped in newspapers.

“Isn’t dinner ready yet?” he asked. “How many times have I told you that I hate to have that thing smoking when I come home?”

“It’s ready, sir.” The maid hurried to turn off the Primus, her young, round face obedient and frightened.

“Have you bought the present?” Kira asked.

“There it is. Don’t unwrap it. It’s fragile. Let’s have dinner. We’ll be late.”

After dinner, the maid washed the dishes and left. Kira sat at her mirror, carefully outlining her lips with a real French lipstick.

“You’re not wearing that dress, are you?” Leo asked.

“Why, yes.”

“No, you’re not. Put on the black velvet one.”

“But I don’t feel like dressing up. Not for Victor’s wedding. I wouldn’t go at all, if it weren’t for Uncle Vasili.”

“Well, since we’re going, I want you to look your best.”

“But, Leo, is it wise? He’s going to have many of his Party friends there. Why show them that we have money?”

“Why not? Certainly, we have money. Let them see that we have money. I’m not going to act like trash for the benefit of trash.”

“All right, Leo. As you wish.”

He looked at her appraisingly when she stood before him, severe as a nun, graceful as a Marquise of two centuries past, her hands very white and thin on the soft black velvet. He smiled with approval and took her hand, as if she were a lady at a Court reception, and kissed her palm, as if she were a courtesan.

“Leo, what did you buy for them?” she asked.

“Oh, just a vase. You may see it, if you wish.”

She unwrapped the newspapers and gasped. “Leo! But this ... this cost a fortune!”

“Certainly. It’s Sèvres.”

“Leo, we can’t give it to them. We can’t let them see that we can afford it. Really, it’s dangerous.”

“Oh, nonsense.”

“Leo, you’re playing with fire. Why bring such a present for all the Communists to see?”

“That’s exactly why.”

“But they know that a regular private trader couldn’t afford gifts like this.”

“Oh, stop being foolish!”

“Take that thing back and exchange it.”

“I won’t.”

“Then I’m not going to the party.”

“Kira ...”

“Leo, please!”

“Oh, very well!”

He seized the vase and flung it to the floor. It burst into glittering splinters. She gasped. He laughed: “Well, come on. You can buy them something else on our way there.”

She stood looking at the splinters. She said dully: “Leo, all that money ...”

“Will you ever forget that word? Can’t we live without thinking of it all the time?”

“But you promised to save. We’ll need it. Things may not last as they are.”

“Oh, nonsense! We have plenty of time to start saving.”

“But don’t you know what they mean, all those hundreds, there, on the floor? Don’t you remember it’s your life that you’re gambling for every one of those rubles?”

“Certainly, I remember. That’s just what I do remember. How do I know I have a future? Why save? I may never need it. I’ve trembled over money long enough. Can’t I throw it away if I want to — while I can?”

“All right, Leo. Come on. We’ll be late.”

“Come on. Stop frowning. You look too lovely to frown.”

In the Dunaev dining room, a bunch of asters stood in a bowl on the table, and a bunch of daisies on the buffet, and a bunch of nasturtiums on an upright piano. The piano had been borrowed from the tenants; long streaks remained on the parquet, following its trail from the door.

Victor wore a modest dark suit and a modest expression of youthful happiness. He shook hands and smiled and bowed graciously, acknowledging congratulations. Marisha wore a purple woolen dress, and a white rose on her shoulder. She looked bewildered; she watched Victor’s movements with a timid, incredulous pride; she blushed and nodded hastily to the compliments of guests, and shook hands without knowing whose hands they were, her eyes vague, roving, searching for Victor.

The guests shuffled in, and muttered best wishes, and settled down uncomfortably. The friends of the family were strained, suspicious and cautiously, elaborately polite to the Party members. The Party members were awkward, uncertain and helplessly polite to the friends of Victor’s bourgeois past. The guests did not sound quite natural in their loud assurances of happiness, when they looked at the silent, stooped figure of Vasili Ivanovitch with a quiet, anguished question frozen in his eyes; at Irina in her best patched dress, with her jerky movements and her strident voice of unnatural gaiety.

Little Acia wore a pink bow on a stiff strand of hair, that kept slipping toward her nose. She giggled, once in a while, glancing up at a guest, biting her knuckles. She stared at Marisha with insolent curiosity. She snooped around the table that displayed the wedding gifts, an odd assortment of objects: a bronze clock, a China ashtray in the shape of a skull, a new Primus, a complete set of Lenin’s works in red paper covers. Irina watched her closely, to drag her away in time from the buffet and the dishes of pastry.

Galina Petrovna followed Victor persistently, patting him on the shoulder, repeating: “I’m so happy, so happy, my dear boy!” The muscles of Victor’s face were fixed in a wide grin, over his sparkling white teeth; he did not have to smile; he merely turned his head to her and nodded without a change of expression.

When Victor escaped from her, Galina Petrovna patted Vasili Ivanovitch’s shoulder, repeating: “I’m so happy, so happy, Vasili. You have a son to be proud of.” Vasili Ivanovitch nodded as if he had not heard.

When Kira entered, the first person she saw, standing alone by a window, was Andrei.

She stopped short at the door. His eyes met hers and moved slowly to the man who held her arm. Leo smiled faintly, contemptuously.

Kira walked straight to Andrei; she looked graceful, erect, supremely confident, in her regal black gown; she extended her hand, saying aloud: “Good evening, Andrei. I’m so glad to see you.”

His eyes told her silently that he understood, that he would be cautious, while he shook her hand with a friendly, impersonal smile.

Leo approached them slowly, indifferently. He bowed to Andrei and asked, his voice courteous, his smile insolent: “So you’re a friend of Victor’s, too?”

“As yourself,” Andrei answered.

Kira walked on, without hurry, to congratulate Victor and Marisha. She nodded to acquaintances, and smiled, and talked to Irina. She knew that the eyes of the man by the window were following her; she did not turn to look at him.

She had talked to many guests before she approached Andrei again, as if by chance; Leo was busy listening to Lydia at the other end of the room.

Andrei whispered eagerly: “Victor has always been inviting me. This is the first time that I’ve accepted. I knew you’d be here. Kira, it has been three weeks ...”

“I know. I’m sorry, Andrei. But I couldn’t. I’ll explain later. I’m glad to see you — if you’re careful.”

“I’ll be careful. What a lovely dress, Kira. New?”

“Oh ... yes. It’s a present from Mother.”

“Kira, do you always go to parties with him?”

“Do you mean Leo?”

“Yes.”

“I hope you don’t presume to dictate the friends with whom I may ...”

“Kira!” He was startled by the icy firmness of her voice; he was apologizing: “Kira, I’m sorry. Of course I didn’t mean ... Forgive me. I know I have no right to say ... But you see, I’ve always disliked him.”

She smiled gaily, as if nothing had happened, and leaning into the shadow of the window niche, pressed his fingers swiftly.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered and, moving away from him, turned, shaking her hair, throwing at him through the tousled locks a glance of such warm, sparkling understanding that he caught his breath, thrilled by the secret they were guarding together, among strangers, for the first time.

Vasili Ivanovitch sat alone in a corner, under a lamp, and the light of a rose satin shade made his white hair pink. He looked at the shuffling feet, at the military boots of young Communists, at the blue fog of smoke streaks that billowed halfway up to the ceiling, in soft, round waves, like a heavy, transparent mixture boiling slowly, at a gold cross on a black velvet ribbon around Lydia’s throat, a bright spark piercing the fog across the room.

Kira approached and sat down beside him. He patted her hand, and said nothing, and knew that she knew. Then he said, as if she had followed his unspoken thoughts: “... I wouldn’t mind so much if he loved her. But he doesn’t.... Kira, you know, when he was a little boy with such big black eyes, I used to look at my customers, those ladies that were like paintings of empresses, and I wondered which one of them was the mother of the little beauty, growing up somewhere, who, some day, would be my daughter, too.... Have you met Marisha’s parents, Kira?”

Galina Petrovna had cornered Leo; she was saying enthusiastically: “... so glad you’re successful, Leo. I’ve always said that a brilliant young man, like you, would have no trouble at all. That dress of Kira’s is magnificent. I’m so happy to see what good care you take of my little girl....”

Victor sat on the arm of a chair occupied by red-headed Rita Eksler. He leaned close to her, holding his cigarette to light the one at her lips. Rita had just divorced her third husband; she narrowed her eyes under the long red bangs and whispered confidential advice. They were laughing softly.

Marisha approached timidly and took Victor’s hand with a clumsy movement of coquetry. He jerked his hand away; he said impatiently: “We can’t neglect our guests, Marisha. Look, Comrade Sonia is alone. Go and talk to her.”

Marisha obeyed humbly. Rita’s glance followed her through a jet of smoke; Rita pulled her short skirt up and crossed her long, thin legs.

“Indeed,” said Comrade Sonia coldly with an accent of final authority, “I cannot say that I congratulate you upon your choice, Comrade Lavrova. A true proletarian does not marry out of her class.”

“But, Comrade Sonia,” Marisha protested, stupefied, “Victor is a Party member.”

“I’ve always said that the rules of Party admission were not sufficiently strict,” said Comrade Sonia.

Marisha wandered dejectedly through the crowd of guests. No one looked at her and she had nothing to say. She saw Vasili Ivanovitch alone by the buffet, lining up bottles and glasses. She approached him and smiled hesitantly. He looked at her, astonished. She said with determination, very quickly, bluntly, running her words together, blushing: “I know you don’t like me, Vasili Ivanovitch. But, you see, I ... I love him so much.”

Vasili Ivanovitch looked at her, then said: “It’s very nice, child,” his voice expressionless.

Marisha’s family sat in a dark corner, solemn, morose, uncomfortable. Her father — a stooped, gray-haired man in a worker’s blouse and patched trousers — clasped long, calloused hands over his knee; his face, with a bitter slash of a mouth, leaned forward, his fierce, brilliant eyes studying the room fixedly; his eyes were dark and young on a withered face. His wife huddled timidly behind him, pallid and shapeless in a flowered calico dress, her face like a sandy shore washed by many rains into a dull, quiet gray. Marisha’s young brother, a lanky boy of eight, stood holding onto his mother’s skirt, throwing angry, suspicious glances at little Acia.

Victor joined Pavel Syerov and a group of three men in leather jackets. He threw one arm around Syerov’s shoulders and the other around those of the secretary of their Party Cell; he leaned on them both, intimately, confidentially, his dark eyes smiling. Comrade Sonia, approaching, heard him whisper: “... yes, I’m proud of my wife’s family and their revolutionary record. Her father — you know — he was exiled to Siberia, under the Czar.”

Comrade Sonia remarked: “Comrade Dunaev is a very smart man.”

Neither Victor nor Syerov liked the tone of her voice. Syerov protested: “Victor’s one of our best workers, Sonia.”

“I said Comrade Dunaev is very smart,” she repeated, and added: “I wouldn’t doubt his class loyalty. I’m sure he had nothing in common with patrician gentlemen such as that Citizen Kovalensky over there.”

Pavel Syerov looked fixedly at Leo’s tall figure bending over Rita Eksler. He asked: “Say, Victor, that man’s name — it’s Lev Kovalensky, isn’t it?”

“Leo Kovalensky, yes. He’s a very dear friend of my cousin’s. Why?”

“Oh, nothing. Nothing at all.”

Leo noticed Kira and Andrei sitting side by side on a window sill. He bowed to Rita, who shrugged impatiently, and walked toward them slowly.

“Am I intruding?” he asked.

“Not at all,” said Kira.

He sat down beside her. He took out his gold cigarette case and, opening it, held it out to her. She shook her head. He held it over to Andrei. Andrei took a cigarette. Leo bent forward to light it, leaning over Kira.

“Sociology being the favorite science of your Party,” said Leo, “don’t you find this wedding an occasion of particular interest, Comrade Taganov?”

“Why, Citizen Kovalensky?”

“As an opportunity to observe the essential immutability of human nature. A marriage for reasons of state is one of the oldest customs of mankind. It had always been advisable to marry into the ruling class.”

“You must remember,” said Andrei, “the social class to which the person concerned belongs.”

“Oh, nonsense!” said Kira. “They’re in love with each other.”

“Love,” said Leo, “is not part of the philosophy of Comrade Taganov’s Party. Is it?”

“It is a question that has no reason to interest you,” Andrei answered.

“Hasn’t it?” Leo asked slowly, looking at him. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“Is it a question that contradicts your ... theory on the subject?” Andrei asked.

“No. I think it supports my theory. You see, my theory is that members of your Party have a tendency to place their sexual desires high above their own class.” He was looking straight at Andrei, but he pointed lightly, with his cigarette, at Marisha across the room.

“If they do,” Andrei answered slowly, “they’re not always unsuccessful.” He was looking straight at Kira, but he pointed at Victor.

“Marisha looks happy,” said Kira. “Why do you resent it, Leo?”

“I resent the arrogant presumption of friends — ” Leo began.

“ — who do not know the limit of a friendship’s rights,” Andrei finished.

“Andrei,” said Kira, “we’re not being gallant to ... Marisha.”

“I’m sorry,” he said hastily. “I’m sure Citizen Kovalensky won’t misunderstand me.”

“I don’t,” said Leo.

Irina had lined glasses on trays and Vasili Ivanovitch had filled them. She passed them to the guests, smiling vaguely at the hands that took the glasses; her smile was resigned, indifferent; she was silent, which was unusual for her.

The trays were emptied swiftly; the guests held the glasses eagerly, impatiently. Victor rose and the clatter of voices stopped short in a solemn silence.

“My dear friends,” Victor’s voice was clear, vibrant with his warmest persuasiveness, “I have no words to describe my deep gratitude to all of you for your kindness on this great day of my life. Let us all join in a toast to a person who is very dear to my heart, not only as a relative, but as a man who symbolizes a splendid example to us, young revolutionaries starting out on our lives of service to the cause of the Proletariat. A man who has devoted his life to that cause, who had risen bravely against the tyranny of the Czar, who has sacrificed his best years in the cold wastes of a Siberian exile, fighting for the great goal of the people’s freedom. And since that goal is ever paramount for all of us, since it is higher than all thoughts of personal happiness, let us drink our first toast to one of the first fighters for the triumph of the Worker-Peasant Soviets, my beloved father-in-law, Glieb Ilyitch Lavrov!”

Hands applauded noisily; glasses rose, clinking; all eyes turned to the corner where the gaunt, stooped figure of Marisha’s father got up slowly. Lavrov was holding his glass, but he did not smile; his gnarled hand motioned for silence. He said slowly, firmly, evenly:

“Listen here, you young whelps. I spent four years in Siberia. I spent them because I saw the people starved and ragged and crushed under a boot, and I asked for freedom. I still see the people starved and ragged and crushed under a boot. Only the boot is red. I didn’t go to Siberia to fight for a crazed, power-drunk, bloodthirsty gang that strangles the people as they’ve never been strangled before, that knows less of freedom than any Czar ever did! Go ahead and drink all you want, drink till you drown the last rag of conscience in your fool brains, drink to anything you wish. But when you drink to the Soviets, don’t drink to me!”

In the dead silence of the room, a man laughed suddenly, a loud, ringing, resonant laughter. It was Andrei Taganov.

Pavel Syerov jumped up and, throwing his arm around Victor’s shoulders, yelled, waving his glass: “Comrades, there are traitors even in the ranks of the workers! Let’s drink to those who are loyal!”

Then there was much noise, too much noise, glasses clinked, voices rose, hands slapped shoulders, everybody yelled at once. No one looked at Lavrov.

Only Vasili Ivanovitch approached him slowly and stood looking at him. Their eyes met. Vasili Ivanovitch extended his glass and said: “Let us drink to our children’s happiness, even though you don’t think that they will be happy, and I don’t, either.”

They drank.

At the other end of the room, Victor seized Marisha’s wrist, dragging her aside, and whispered, his white lips at her ear: “You damn fool! Why didn’t you tell me about him?”

She muttered, blinking, her eyes full of tears: “I was scared. I knew you wouldn’t like it, darling.... Oh, darling, you shouldn’t have ...”

“Shut up!”

There were many drinks to follow. Victor had provided a good supply of bottles and Pavel Syerov helped to open them speedily. The trays of pastry were emptied. Dirty dishes were stacked on the tables. A few glasses were broken. Cigarette smoke hung as a motionless blue cloud under the ceiling.

Marisha’s family had left. Galina Petrovna sat sleepily, trying to keep her head erect. Alexander Dimitrievitch snored softly, his head on the arm of his chair. Little Acia had fallen asleep on a trunk in the corridor, her face smeared with chocolate frosting. Irina sat in a corner, watching the crowd indifferently. Comrade Sonia bent under the pink lamp, reading a newspaper. Victor and Pavel Syerov were the center of a group at the buffet that clinked glasses and tried to sing revolutionary songs in muffled voices. Marisha wandered about listlessly, her nose shiny, the white rose wilted and brownish on her shoulder.

Lydia staggered to the piano and put an arm around Marisha’s waist. “It’s beautiful,” said Lydia in a thick, sad voice, “it’s beautiful.”

“What’s beautiful?” Marisha asked.

“Love,” said Lydia. “Romance. That’s it: romance.... Ah, love is rare in this world. They are few, the chosen few.... We wander through a barren existence without romance. There are no beautiful feelings left in the world. Has it ever occurred to you that there are no beautiful feelings left in the world?”

“That’s too bad,” said Marisha.

“It’s sad,” Lydia sighed. “That’s what it is: sad.... You’re a very lucky girl.... But it’s sad.... Listen, I’m going to play something beautiful for you.... Something beautiful and sad....”

She struck the keys uncertainly. She played a gypsy love song, her fingers rushing suddenly into quick, sharp trills, then lingering on long, sad chords, then slipping on the wrong notes, her head nodding.

Andrei whispered to Kira: “Let’s go, Kira. Let me take you home.”

“I can’t, Andrei. I ...”

“I know. You came with him. But I don’t think he’s in a condition to take you home.”

He pointed at Leo across the room. Leo’s head, thrown back, was leaning heavily against an armchair. His one arm encircled Rita’s waist; the other was thrown across the shoulders of a pretty blonde who giggled softly at something he was muttering. Rita’s head rested on his shoulder and her hand caressed his dishevelled hair.

Kira rose silently, leaving Andrei, and walked to Leo. She stood before him and said softly: “Leo, we had better go home.”

He waved sleepily. “Leave me alone. Get out of here.”

She noticed suddenly that Andrei stood behind her. He said: “You’d better be careful of what you say, Kovalensky.”

Leo pushed Rita aside and the blonde slid, giggling, to the floor. He said, frowning, pointing at Kira: “And you’d better keep away from her. And you’d better stop sending her gifts and watches and such. I resent it.”

“What right have you to resent it?”

Leo stood up, swaying, smiling ominously: “What right? I’ll tell you what right. I’ll ...”

“Leo,” Kira interrupted firmly, weighing her every word, her voice loud, her eyes holding his, “people are looking at you. Now what is it you wanted to say?”

“Nothing,” said Leo.

“If you weren’t drunk ...” Andrei began.

“If I weren’t drunk, you’d what? You seem sober. And yet not sober enough not to be making a fool of yourself over a woman you have no right to approach.”

“Well, listen to me, you ...”

“You’d better listen, Leo,” Kira interrupted again. “Andrei finds this the proper time to tell you something.”

“What is it, Comrade G.P.U.?”

“Nothing,” said Andrei.

“Then you’d better leave her alone.”

“Not while you seem to forget the respect that you owe to ...”

“Are you defending her against me?” Leo burst out laughing. Leo’s laughter could be more insulting than his smile, more insulting than a slap in the face.

“Come on, Kira,” said Andrei, “I’ll take you home.”

“Yes,” said Kira.

“You’re not taking her anywhere!” Leo roared. “You’re ...”

“Yes, he is!” Irina interrupted, stepping suddenly between them. Leo stared at her, amazed. With sudden strength, she whirled him about, pushing him into a window niche, while she nodded to Andrei, ordering him to hurry. He took Kira’s arm and led her out; she followed silently, obediently.

Irina hissed into Leo’s face: “Are you insane? What were you trying to do? Yell for all of them to hear that she’s your mistress?”

Leo shrugged and laughed indifferently: “All right. Let her go with anyone she pleases. If she thinks I’m jealous, she’s mistaken.”

Kira sat silently in the cab, her head thrown back, her eyes closed.

“Kira,” Andrei whispered, “that man is no friend of yours. You shouldn’t be seen with him.”

She did not answer.

When they were driving by the palace garden, he asked: “Kira, are you too tired to ... stop at my house?”

She said indifferently: “No. I’m not. Let’s stop.”

When she came home, Leo was sprawled on the bed, fully dressed, asleep. He raised his head and looked at her.

“Where have you been, Kira?” he asked softly, helplessly.

“Just ... just driving around,” she answered.

“I thought you had gone. Forever.... What was it I said tonight, Kira?”

“Nothing,” she whispered, kneeling by his side.

“You should leave me, Kira.... I wish you could leave me.... But you won’t.... You won’t leave me, Kira ... Kira ... will you?”

“No,” she whispered. “Leo, will you leave that business of yours?”

“No. It’s too late. But before ... before they get me ... I still have you, Kira ... Kira ... Kira ... I love you ... I still have you....”

She whispered: “Yes,” pressing his face, white as marble, to the black velvet of her dress.

VI

“COMRADES! THE UNION OF SOCIALIST SOVIET REPUBLICS is surrounded by a hostile ring of enemies who watch and plot for its downfall. But no external enemy, no heinous plot of world imperialists is as dangerous to us as the internal enemy of dissension within our own ranks.”

Tall windows checkered into small square panes were closed against the gray void of an autumn sky. Columns of pale golden marble rose spreading into dim vaults. Five portraits of Lenin, somber as ikons, looked down upon a motionless crowd of leather jackets and red kerchiefs. A tall lectern, like the high, thin stem of a torch, stood at the head of the hall; above the lectern, like the flame of the torch spurting high to the ceiling, hung a banner of scarlet velvet with gold letters: “The All-Union Communist Party is the leader of the world fight for Freedom!” The hall had been a palace; it looked like a temple; those in it looked like an army, stern, silent and tense, receiving its orders. It was a Party meeting.

A speaker stood at the lectern. He had a little black beard, and wore a pince-nez that sparkled in the twilight; he waved long arms with very small hands. Nothing moved in the hall before him, but drops of rain rolling slowly down the window panes.

“Comrades! A grave new danger has been growing among us in the last year. I call it the danger of over-idealism. We’ve all heard the accusations of its deluded victims. They cry that Communism has failed, that we’ve surrendered our principles, that since the introduction of NEP — our New Economic Policy — the Communist Party has been retreating, fleeing before a new form of private profiteering which now rules our country. They claim that we are holding power for the sake of power and have forgotten our ideals. Such is the whining of weaklings and cowards who cannot face practical reality. It is true that we’ve had to abandon the policy of Military Communism, which had brought us to the brink of total starvation. It is true that we’ve had to make concessions to private traders. What of it? A retreat is not a defeat. A temporary compromise is not a surrender. We were betrayed by the spineless, weak-kneed, anemic socialists of foreign countries who sold out their working masses to their bourgeois masters. The World Revolution, which was to make a pure world Communism possible, has been delayed. We, therefore, have had to compromise, for the time being. We have had to abandon our theories of pure Communism and come down to earth, to the prosaic task of economic reconstruction. Some may think it a slow, drab, uninspiring process; but loyal Communists know the epic grandeur of our new economic front. Loyal Communists know the revolutionary value and significance of our ration cards, our Primuses, the lines at our co-operatives. Our great leader, Comrade Lenin, with his usual farsightedness, warned us several years ago against the danger of being ‘over-idealistic.’ That perilous fallacy has smitten some of our best heads. It has taken from us the man who had been one of our first leaders — Leon Trotsky. None of his past services to the Proletariat could redeem the treachery of his assertion that we’ve betrayed Communism. His followers have been thrown out of our ranks. That is why we’ve had Party purges. That is why these purges will continue. We must follow, with absolute discipline, the program dictated by our Party — and not the petty doubts and personal opinions of the few who still think of themselves and of their so-called conscience in terms of bourgeois individualism. We don’t need those who take a selfish, old-fashioned pride in the purity of their own convictions. We need those who are not afraid of a little compromise. We don’t need the obstinate, unbending Communist of iron. The new Communist is of rubber! Idealism, comrades, is a good thing in its proper amount. Too much of it is like too much of a good old wine: one’s liable to lose one’s head. Let this be a warning to any of Trotsky’s secret sympathizers who might still remain within the Party: no past services, no past record will save them from the axe of the next Party purge. They are traitors and they will be kicked out, no matter who they are or what they’ve been!”

Hands applauded clamorously. Then the still, black rows of jackets broke into motion; men rose; the meeting was closed.

They gathered in groups, whispering excitedly. They giggled, muffling the sound with a hand pressed to a mouth. They pointed furtively at a few solitary figures. Behind the huge checkered windows, the lead of the sky was turning to a dark blue steel.

“Congratulations, pal,” someone slapped Pavel Syerov’s shoulder. “I heard you’ve been elected vice-president of the Railroad Workers Union’s Club of Leninism.”

“Yes,” Syerov answered modestly.

“Good luck, Pavlusha. You’re an example of activity for all of us to follow. No worries about Party purges for you.”

“I’ve always striven to keep my Party loyalty above suspicion,” Syerov answered modestly.

“Say, pal, you see, it’s still two weeks till the first of the month and I’ve ... well ... I’m slightly in need of cash ... and ... well ... I thought maybe....”

“Sure,” said Syerov, opening his wallet, “with pleasure.”

“You never turn a friend down, Pavlusha. And you always seem to have enough to ...”

“Just being economical with my salary,” Syerov said modestly.

Comrade Sonia was waving her short arms, trying to plough her way through an eager group that followed her persistently. She was snapping at them: “I’m sorry, comrade, that’s out of the question.... Yes, comrade, I’ll be glad to give you an appointment. Call my secretary at the Zhenotdel.... You will find it wise to follow my suggestion, comrade.... I’d be happy to address your Circle, comrade, but unfortunately, I’m giving a lecture at a Rabfac Club at that hour....”

Victor had taken the bearded speaker of the meeting aside and was whispering eagerly, persuasively: “I received my diploma at the Institute two weeks ago, comrade.... You understand that the job I’m holding at present is quite unsatisfactory for a full-fledged engineer and ...”

“I know, Comrade Dunaev, I know the position you desire. Personally, I know of no better man to fill it. And I’d do anything in my power for the husband of my friend Marisha Lavrova. But ...” He looked around cautiously, over the rim of his pince-nez, and drew closer to Victor, lowering his voice. “Just between you and me, comrade, there’s a grave obstacle in your way. You understand that that hydroelectric project is the most stupendous undertaking of the republic at present, and every job connected with it is assigned with particular caution and ...” his voice dropped to a whisper, “your Party record is magnificent, Comrade Dunaev, but you know how it is, there are always those inclined to suspicion, and ... Frankly, I’ve heard it said that your social past ... your father and family, you know ... But don’t give up hope. I’ll do all I can for you.”

Andrei Taganov stood alone in an emptying row of chairs. He was buttoning his leather jacket slowly. His eyes were fixed on the flaming scarlet banner above the lectern.

At the top of the stairs, on his way out, he was stopped by Comrade Sonia.

“Well, Comrade Taganov,” she asked loudly, so that others turned to look at them, “what did you think of the speech?”

“It was explicit,” Andrei answered slowly, all the syllables of his voice alike, as grains of lead.

“Don’t you agree with the speaker?”

“I prefer not to discuss it.”

“Oh, you don’t have to,” she smiled pleasantly. “You don’t have to. I know — we know — what you think. But what I’d like you to answer is this: why do you think you are entitled to your own thoughts? Against those of the majority of your Collective? Or is the majority’s will sufficient for you, Comrade Taganov? Or is Comrade Taganov becoming an individualist?”

“I’m very sorry, Comrade Sonia, but I’m in a hurry.”

“It’s all right with me, Comrade Taganov. I have nothing more to say. Just a little advice, from a friend: remember that the speech has made it plain what awaits those who think themselves smarter than the Party.”

Andrei walked slowly down the stairs. It was dark. Far below, a bluish gleam showed a floor of polished marble. A street lamp beyond the tall window threw a blue square of light, checkered into panes, on the wall by the staircase; little shadows of raindrops rolled slowly down the wall. Andrei walked down, his body slender, erect, unhurried, steady, the kind of body that in centuries past had worn the armor of a Roman, the mail of a crusader; it wore a leather jacket now.

Its tall, black shadow moved slowly across the blue square of light and raindrops on the wall.

Victor came home. He flung his coat on a chair in the lobby and kicked his galoshes into a corner. The galoshes upset an umbrella stand that clattered down to the floor. Victor did not stop to pick it up.

In the dining room, Marisha sat before a pile of opened volumes, bending her head to one side, writing studiously, biting her pencil. Vasili Ivanovitch sat by a window, carving a wooden box. Acia sat on the floor, mixing sawdust, potato peelings and sunflower-seed shells in a broken bowl.

“Dinner ready?” snapped Victor.

Marisha fluttered up to throw her arms around him. “Not ... not quite, darling,” she apologized. “Irina’s been busy and I have this thesis to write for tomorrow and ...”

He threw her arms off impatiently and walked out, slamming the door. He went down a dim corridor to Irina’s room. He threw the door open without knocking. Irina stood by the window, in Sasha’s arms, his lips on hers. She jerked away from him; she cried: “Victor!”, her voice choked with indignation. Victor wheeled about without a word and slammed the door behind him.

He returned to the dining room. He roared at Marisha: “Why the hell isn’t the bed made in our room? The room’s like a pigsty. What have you been doing all day?”

“But darling,” she faltered, “I ... I’ve been at the Rabfac, and then at the Lenin’s Library meeting, and the Wall Newspaper’s Editorial Board, and then there’s this thesis on Electrification I have to read tomorrow at the Club, and I don’t know a thing about Electrification and I’ve had to read so much and ...”

“Well, go and see if you can heat something on the Primus. I expect to be fed when I come home.”

“Yes, dear.”

She gathered her books swiftly, nervously. She hurried, pressing the heavy pile to her breast, dropped two books by the door, bent awkwardly to pick them up, and went out.

“Father,” said Victor, “why don’t you get a job?”

Vasili Ivanovitch raised his head slowly and looked at him. “What’s the matter, Victor?” he asked.

“Nothing. Nothing at all. Only it’s rather foolish to be registered as an unemployed bourgeois and be constantly under suspicion.”

“Victor, we haven’t discussed our political views for a long time, you know. But if you want to hear it — I will not work for your government so long as I live.”

“But surely, Father, you’re not hoping still that ...”

“What I’m hoping is not to be discussed with a Party man. And if you’re tired of the expense ...”

“Oh, no, Father, of course it isn’t that.”

Sasha passed through the dining room on his way out. He shook hands with Vasili Ivanovitch. He patted Acia’s head. He went out without a word or a glance at Victor.

“Irina, I want to speak to you,” said Victor.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I want to speak to you — alone.”

“Anything you have to say, Father may hear it.”

“Very well. It’s about that man,” he pointed at the door that had closed behind Sasha.

“Yes?”

“I hope you realize the infernal situation.”

“No. I don’t. What situation?”

“Do you know with what type of man you’re carrying on an affair?”

“I’m not carrying on any affair. Sasha and I are engaged.”

Victor jerked forward, opening his mouth and closing it again, then said slowly, with an effort to control himself: “Irina, that’s utterly impossible.”

She stood before him, her eyes steady, menacing, scornful. She asked: “Is it? Just exactly why?”

He leaned toward her, his mouth twitching. “Listen,” he hissed, “don’t make any useless denials. I know what your Sasha Chernov is. He’s up to his neck in counter-revolutionary plots. It’s none of my business. I’m keeping my mouth shut. But it won’t be long before others in the Party discover it. You know the end for bright lads like him. Do you expect me to stand by and watch my sister marrying a counter-revolutionary? What do you think it will do to my Party standing?”

“What it will do to your Party standing or to yourself,” Irina said with meticulous precision, “concerns me less than the cat’s leavings on the back stairs.”

“Irina!” Vasili Ivanovitch gasped. Victor whirled upon him.

“You tell her!” Victor roared. “It’s hard enough to get anywhere with the millstone of this family tied around my neck! You can roll straight down to hell, if you all enjoy it so nobly, but I’ll be damned if you’re going to drag me along!”

“But, Victor,” Vasili Ivanovitch said quietly, “there’s nothing either you or I can do about it. Your sister loves him. She has a right to her own happiness. God knows, she’s had little enough of it these last few years.”

“If you’re so afraid for your damn Party hide,” said Irina, “I’ll get out of here. I’m making enough for myself. I could starve on my own on what one of your Red clubs considers a living salary! I’ve have gone long ago, if it weren’t for Father and Acia!”

“Irina,” Vasili Ivanovitch moaned, “you won’t do that!”

“In other words,” Victor asked, “you refuse to give up that young fool?”

“And also,” Irina answered, “I refuse to discuss him with you.”

“Very well,” said Victor, “I’ve warned you.”

“Victor!” Vasili Ivanovitch cried. “You’re — you’re not going to harm Sasha, are you?”

“Don’t worry,” Irina hissed, “he won’t. It would be too compromising for his Party standing!”

Kira met Vava Milovskaia in the street, but could hardly recognize her, and it was Vava who approached timidly, muttering: “How are you, Kira?”

Vava wore an old felt hat made over from her father’s derby, with a broken brim that looked as if it had not been brushed for days. One black curl hung carelessly over her right cheek, her mouth was smeared unevenly with a faded, purplish lipstick, and her little nose was shiny, but her eyes were dull; her eyes looked swollen, aged, indifferent.

“Vava, I haven’t seen you for such a long time. How are you?”

“I’m ... I’m married, Kira.”

“You ... Why, congratulations.... When?”

“Thanks. Two weeks ago.” Vava’s eyes were looking away; she muttered, staring at the street: “I ... we ... we didn’t have a big wedding, so we didn’t invite anyone. Just the family. You see, it was a church wedding, and Kolya didn’t want that known at the office where he works.”

“Kolya ... ?”

“Yes, Kolya Smiatkin, you probably don’t remember him, you met him at my party, though.... That’s what I am now: Citizen Smiatkina.... He works at the Tobacco Trust, and it’s not a very big job, but they say he’ll get a raise.... He’s a very nice boy ... he ... he loves me very much.... Why shouldn’t I have married him?”

“I didn’t say you shouldn’t have, Vava.”

“What is there to wait for? What can one do with oneself, these days, if one isn’t ... if one isn’t a.... What I like about you, Kira, is that you’re the first person who didn’t say she wished me to be happy!”

“But I do wish it, Vava.”

“Well, I’m happy!” She tossed her head defiantly. “I’m perfectly happy!”

Vava’s hand in a soiled glove rested on Kira’s arm; she hesitated, as if she feared Kira’s presence, and closed her fingers tighter over Kira’s arm, as if she were afraid to let her go, as if she were hanging on desperately to something she did not want to utter. Then she whispered, looking away: “Kira ... do you think ... he’s happy?”

“Victor is not a person who cares about being happy,” Kira answered slowly.

“I wouldn’t mind ...” Vava whispered, “I wouldn’t mind ... if she were pretty.... But I saw her.... Oh, well, anyway, it doesn’t concern me at all. Not in the least.... I’d like you to come over and visit us, Kira, you and Leo. Only ... only we haven’t found a place to live yet. I moved into Kolya’s room, because ... because my old room ... well, Father didn’t approve, you see, so I thought it would be better to move out. And Kolya’s room — it’s a former storage closet in a big apartment, and it’s so small that we ... But when we find a room, I’ll invite you to come over and ... Well, I have to run along.... Good-bye, Kira.”

“Good-bye, Vava.”

“He’s not in,” said the gray-haired woman.

“I’ll wait,” said Comrade Sonia.

The woman shuffled uncomfortably from foot to foot and chewed her lips. Then she said: “Don’t see how you can wait, citizen. We’ve got no reception room. I’m only Citizen Syerov’s neighbor and my quarters ...”

“I’ll wait in Citizen Syerov’s room.”

“But, citizen ...”

“I said I’ll wait in Citizen Syerov’s room.”

Comrade Sonia walked resolutely down the corridor. The old neighbor followed, nodding dejectedly, watching the swift heels of Comrade Sonia’s flat, masculine shoes.

Pavel Syerov jumped up when Comrade Sonia entered. He threw his arms wide in a gesture of surprise and welcome.

“Sonia, my dear!” he laughed very loudly. “It’s you! My dear, I’m so sorry. I was busy and I had given orders ... but had I known ...”

“It’s quite all right,” Comrade Sonia dismissed the subject. She threw a heavy brief case on the table and unbuttoned her coat, unwinding a thick, masculine scarf from her neck. She glanced at her wristwatch. “I have half an hour to spare,” she said. “I’m on my way to the Club. We’re opening a Lenin’s Nook today. I had to see you about something important.”

Syerov offered her a chair and pulled on his coat, adjusting his tie before a mirror, smoothing his hair, smiling ingratiatingly.

“Pavel,” said Comrade Sonia, “we’re going to have a baby.”

Syerov’s hand dropped. His mouth fell open. “A ... ?”

“A baby,” Comrade Sonia said firmly.

“What the ...”

“It’s been three months, I know,” said Comrade Sonia.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I wasn’t sure.”

“But hell! You’ll have to ...”

“It’s too late to do anything now.”

“Why the devil didn’t you ...”

“I said it was too late.”

Syerov fell on a chair before her and stared intently at her unruffled calm. “Are you sure it’s mine?” he asked hoarsely.

“Pavel,” she said without raising her voice, “you’re insulting me.”

He jumped up, and walked to the door, and came back, and sat down again, and jumped up. “Well, what in hell are we to do about it?”

“We’re going to be married, Pavel.”

He bent toward her, his closed fist on the table. “You’ve gone crazy,” he said heavily.

She looked at him, silently, waiting.

“You’re crazy, I tell you! I have no such intention.”

“But you’ll have to do it.”

“I will, will I ? You get out of here, you ...”

“Pavel,” she said softly, “don’t say anything you may regret.”

“Listen ... what the ... we’re not living in a bourgeois country. Hell! There’s no such thing as a betrayed virgin ... and you were no virgin anyway ... and.... Well, if you want to go to court — try and collect for its support — and the devil take you — but there’s no law to make me marry you! Marry! Hell! You’d think we lived in England or something!”

“Sit down, Pavel,” said Comrade Sonia, adjusting a button on her cuff, “and don’t misunderstand me. My attitude on the subject is not old-fashioned in the least. I am not concerned over morals or public disgrace or any such nonsense. It is merely a matter of our duty.”

“Our ... what?”

“Our duty, Pavel. To a future citizen of our republic.”

Syerov laughed; it sounded as if he were blowing his nose. “Cut that out!” he said. “You’re not addressing a Club meeting.”

“Indeed,” said Comrade Sonia, “so loyalty to our principles is not part of your private life?”

He jumped up again. “Now, Sonia, don’t misunderstand me. Of course, I am always loyal and our principles ... of course, it is a fine sentiment and I appreciate it ... but then, what’s the difference to the ... future citizen?”

“The future of our republic is in the coming generation. The upbringing of our youth is a vital problem. Our child shall have the advantage of a Party mother — and father — to guide its steps.”

“Hell, Sonia! That’s not at all up to date. There are day-nurseries and, you know, collective training, one big family, the spirit of the collective learned early in life, and ...”

“State nurseries are to be the great accomplishment of the future. At present — they are imperfect. Our child shall be brought up as a perfect citizen of our great republic. Our child ...”

“Our child! Oh, hell! how do I know ...”

“Pavel, are you intimating that ...”

“Oh, no, no, I didn’t mean anything, but ... Hell! Sonia, I was drunk. You should have known better than ...”

“Then you regret it, Pavel?”

“Oh, no, no, of course not. You know I love you, Sonia.... Sonia, listen, honest, I can’t get married right now. Really, I’d like nothing better and I’d be proud to marry you, but look here, I’m just starting, I’ve got a career to think about. I’ve just made such a fine beginning, and ... and it’s my duty to the Party to train and perfect myself and rise ...”

“I could help you, Pavel, or ...” She said it slowly, looking at him. She did not have to finish; he understood.

“But, Sonia ...” he moaned helplessly.

“I’m as upset about it as you are,” she said calmly. “It was a more painful surprise to me than it is to you. But I’m prepared to do what I consider my duty.”

He fell heavily on his chair and said dully, without raising his head: “Listen, Sonia, give me two days, will you? To think it over and get sort of used to the idea and ...”

“Certainly,” she answered, rising, “think it over. My time’s up anyway. Have to run. So long.”

“So long,” he muttered, without looking at her.

Pavel Syerov got drunk, that evening. On the following day, he called at the Railroad Workers Union’s Club. The president said: “Congratulations, Comrade Syerov. I hear you’re going to marry Comrade Sonia. You couldn’t make a better match.” At the Party Cell, the secretary said: “Well, Pavlusha, all set to go far in this world? With such a wife ...” At the Marxist Club, an imposing official, whom he had never met before, smiled, slapping his shoulder: “Come and see me any time, Comrade Syerov. I’m always in to a friend of your future wife.”

That evening, Pavel Syerov called Antonina Pavlovna and swore at Morozov and requested a larger share than he had been getting, and demanded it in advance — and, receiving it, bought drinks for a girl he met on the street.

Three days later, Pavel Syerov and Comrade Sonia were married. They stood before a clerk in the bare room of the Zags and signed a large register. Comrade Sonia signified her intention of retaining her maiden name.

That evening, Comrade Sonia moved into Syerov’s room, which was larger than her own. “Oh, darling,” she said, “we must think of a good revolutionary name for our child.”

A hand knocked on Andrei’s door, a weighty knock followed by a thud, as if a fist had leaned heavily against the panel.

Andrei sat on the floor, studying, with a lamp by his side, with the huge white sheets of drafts spread before him. He raised his head and asked impatiently: “Who’s there?”

“It’s me, Andrei,” a man’s voice answered heavily. “Open the door. It’s me, Stepan Timoshenko.”

Andrei jumped up and threw the door open. Stepan Timoshenko, who had served in the Baltic Fleet and in the Coast Guard of the G.P.U., stood on the stair-landing, swaying a little, leaning against the wall. He wore a sailor’s cap, but its band bore no star, no ship’s name; he wore civilian clothes, a short jacket with a mangy rabbit fur collar, with rubbed spots on the elbows of sleeves too tight for his huge arms; the fur collar was unfastened; his tanned neck with bulging cords was open to the cold. He grinned, the light glistening on his white teeth, in his dark eyes.

“Good evening, Andrei. Mind if I butt in?”

“Come in. I’m glad to see you. I thought you had forgotten your old friends.”

“No,” said Timoshenko. “No, I haven’t.” He lumbered in, and closed the door behind him, reeling a little. “No, I haven’t.... but some of the old friends are only too damn glad to forget me.... I don’t mean you, Andrei. No. Not you.”

“Sit down,” said Andrei. “Take that coat off. Aren’t you cold?”

“Who, me? No. I’m never cold. And if I was, it would do me no good because this here is all I’ve got.... I’ll take the damn thing off.... Here.... Sure, all right, I’ll sit down. I bet you want me to sit down because you think I’m drunk.”

“No,” said Andrei, “but ...”

“Well, I am drunk. But not very much. You don’t mind if I’m a little drunk, do you?”

“Where have you been, Stepan? I haven’t seen you for months.”

“Oh, around. I was kicked out of the G.P.U., you know that, don’t you?”

Andrei nodded slowly, looking down at his drafts on the floor.

“Yep,” said Timoshenko, stretching his feet out comfortably, “I was kicked out. Not reliable. No. Not reliable. Not revolutionary enough. Stepan Timoshenko of the Red Baltfleet.”

“I’m sorry,” said Andrei.

“Shut up. Who’s asking you for sympathy? That’s funny, that’s what it is.... Very, very humorous....” He looked up at the Cupids on the cornice. “And you’ve got a funny place here. It’s a hell of a place for a Communist to live in.”

“I don’t mind,” said Andrei. “I could move, but rooms are so hard to get these days.”

“Sure,” said Timoshenko and laughed suddenly, loudly, senselessly. “Sure. It’s hard for Andrei Taganov. It wouldn’t be hard for little Comrade Syerov, for instance. It wouldn’t be hard for any bastard that uses a Party card as a butcher knife. It wouldn’t be hard to throw some poor devil out on the ice of the Neva.”

“You’re talking nonsense, Stepan. Would you ... would you like something to eat?”

“No. Hell, no.... What are you driving at, you little fool? Think I’m starving?”

“Why, no, I didn’t even ...”

“Well, don’t. I still have enough to eat. And to drink. Plenty to drink.... I just came around because I thought little Andrei needed someone to look after him. Little Andrei needs it badly. He will need it very badly.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Nothing. Nothing, pal. Just talking. Can’t I talk? Are you like the rest of them? Want everybody to talk, order them to talk, talk, talk, without the right to say anything?”

“Here,” said Andrei, “put that pillow under your neck and take it easy. Rest. You’re not feeling well.”

“Who, me?” Timoshenko took the pillow and flung it at the wall and laughed. “I’ve never felt better in my life. I feel grand. Free and finished. No worries. No worries of any kind any more.”

“Stepan, why don’t you come here more often? We used to be friends. We could still help each other.”

Timoshenko leaned forward, and stared at Andrei, and grinned somberly: “I can’t help you, kid. I could help you only if you could take me by the scruff of my neck and kick me out and with me kick out everything that goes with me, and then go and bow very low and lick a very big boot. But you won’t do it. And that’s why I hate you, Andrei. And that’s why I wish you were my son. Only I’ll never have a son. My sons are strewn all over the whorehouses of the U.S.S.R.”

He looked down at the white drafts on the floor, and kicked a book, and asked: “What are you doing here, Andrei?”

“I was studying. I haven’t had much time to study. I’ve been busy at the G.P.U.”

“Studying, eh? How many years you got left at the Institute?”

“Three years.”

“Uh-huh. Think you’ll need it?”

“Need what?”

“The learning.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Say, pal, did I tell you they kicked me out of the G.P.U.? Oh, yes, I told you. But they haven’t kicked me out of the Party. Not yet. But they will. At the next purge — I go.”

“I wouldn’t think of that in advance. You can still ...”

“I know what I’m talking about. And you do, too. And do you know who’ll go next?”

“No,” said Andrei.

“You,” said Stepan Timoshenko.

Andrei rose, crossed his arms, looked at Timoshenko, and said quietly: “Maybe.”

“Listen, pal,” Timoshenko asked, “have you got something to drink here?”

“No,” said Andrei. “And you’re drinking too much, Stepan.”

“Oh, am I?” Timoshenko chuckled, and his head rocked slowly, mechanically, so that its huge shadow on the wall swung like a pendulum. “Am I drinking too much? And have I no reason to drink? Say, I’ll tell you,” he rose, swaying, towering over Andrei, his shadow hitting the doves on the ceiling. “I’ll tell you the reason and then you’ll say I don’t drink enough, you poor little pup in the rain, that’s what you’ll say!”

He pulled at his sweater, too tight under the arms, and scratched his shoulder blades, and roared suddenly: “Once upon a time, we made a revolution. We said we were tired of hunger, of sweat and of lice. So we cut throats, and broke skulls, and poured blood, our blood, their blood, to wash a clean road for freedom. Now look around you. Look around you, Comrade Taganov, Party member since 1915! Do you see where men live, men, our brothers? Do you see what they eat? Have you ever seen a woman falling on the street, vomiting blood on the cobblestones, dying of hunger? I have. Did you see the limousines speeding at night? Did you see who’s in them? There’s a nice little comrade we have in the Party. A smart young man with a brilliant future. Pavel Syerov’s the name. Have you ever seen him open his wallet to pay for a whore’s champagne? Did you ever wonder where he gets the money? Did you ever go to the European roof garden? Not often, I bet. But if you had, you’d see the respectable Citizen Morozov getting indigestion on caviar. Who is he? Just assistant manager of the Food Trust. The State Food Trust of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. We’re the leaders of the world proletariat and we’ll bring freedom to all suffering humanity! Look at our Party. Look at the loyal members with ink still wet on their Party tickets. Watch them reaping the harvest from the soil that our blood had fertilized. But we’re not red enough for them. We’re not revolutionaries. We’re kicked out as traitors. We’re kicked out for Trotskyism. We’re kicked out because we didn’t lose our sight and our conscience when the Czar lost his throne, the sight and the conscience that made him lose it. We’re kicked out because we yelled to them that they’ve lost the battle, strangled the revolution, sold out the people, and there’s nothing left now but power, brute power. They don’t want us. Not me nor you. There’s no place for men like you, Andrei, not anywhere on this earth. Well, you don’t see it. And I’m glad you don’t. Only I hope I’m not there on the day when you will!”

Andrei stood, silent, his arms crossed. Timoshenko seized his jacket and pulled it on hastily, reeling.

“Where are you going?” asked Andrei.

“Going. Anywhere. I don’t want to stay here.”

“Stepan, don’t you think that I see it, too? But screaming about it won’t help. And drinking yourself to death won’t help. One can still fight.”

“Sure. Go on fighting. It’s none of my business. I’m going to have a drink.”

Andrei watched him buttoning the jacket, pulling the starless sailor cap over one ear. “Stepan, what are you going to do?”

“Now?”

“No. In the years to come.”

“The years to come?” Timoshenko laughed, throwing his head back, the mangy rabbit collar shaking on his huge shoulders. “That’s a cute sentence: the years to come. Why are you so sure they’re coming?” He leaned toward Andrei, and winked slyly, mysteriously. “Did it ever occur to you, Comrade Taganov, what a peculiar thing it is that so many of our Party comrades are dying of overwork? You’ve read it in the papers, haven’t you? Another glorious victim fallen on the path of the revolution, a life burned out in a ceaseless task.... You know what they are, don’t you, those comrades dying of a ceaseless task? Suicides. That’s what they are. Suicides. Only the papers will never say it. Funny how many of them are killing themselves these days. Wonder why.”

“Stepan,” Andrei took a huge, hot, clammy hand into his strong, cold ones, “you’re not thinking of ...”

“I’m not thinking of anything. Hell, no. All I want is a drink. And, anyway, if I do think, I’ll come to say good-bye. I promise.”

At the door, Andrei stopped him once again: “Stepan, why don’t you stay here? For a while?”

Stepan Timoshenko waved with the majesty of sweeping a mantle over his shoulders, and shook his head, reeling out to the landing of the long marble stairway:

“No. Not here. I don’t want to see you, Andrei. I don’t want to see that damn face of yours. Because ... you see, I’m an old battleship, ready for the scrap heap, with all its guts rusted and rotted. But I don’t mind that. And I’d give the last of these rotted guts to help the only man I know left in the world — and that’s you. But I don’t mind that. What I mind is that I know that could I take my guts out and give them for you — it still wouldn’t save you!”

VII

KIRA STOOD LOOKING AT A BUILDING UNDER construction.

Jagged walls of red bricks, new and raw, checkered by a net of fresh, white cement, rose to a gray sky darkening slowly in an early twilight. High against the clouds, workers knelt on the walls, and iron hammers knocked, ringing sonorously over the street, and engines roared hoarsely, and steam whistled somewhere in a tangled forest of planks, beams, scaffoldings splattered with lime. She stood watching, her eyes wide, her lips smiling. A young man, with a tanned face and a pipe in the corner of his mouth, walked swiftly up the narrow planks in the perilous framework, and the movements of his hands were brusque, precise, implacable like the blows of a hammer. She did not know how long she had been standing there. She had forgotten all but the work before her. Then, suddenly, her world returning to her with a jolt, in a blinding second of clear, sharp perception — as if new eyes were taking a first glance at a new world and saw it as she had forgotten to see it — she wondered, astonished, why she was not there, on the scaffolding, giving orders like the man with the pipe, what reason could possibly keep her from her work, her life work, her only desire. It was one swift second, so swift that she felt it only after it was over; and after it was over, she saw the world again as she had grown accustomed to see it, and she remembered why she was not on the scaffolding, what reason had closed to her, forever, the only work she wanted. And in her mind, four words filled the void she felt rising from somewhere in her breast: “Perhaps ... Some day ... Abroad ...”

A hand touched her shoulder: “What are you doing here, citizen?”

A militia-man was staring suspiciously down at her. He wore a peaked khaki cap, with a red star, over a low forehead. He squinted, opening soft lips that had no shape, like pillows: “You have been standing here for half an hour, citizen. What do you want?”

“Nothing,” said Kira.

“Well, then, on your way, citizen.”

“I was just looking,” said Kira.

“You,” decreed the militia-man, opening lips shapeless as pillows, “have no business looking.”

She turned silently and walked away.

Against her skin, sewn on to her skirt, a little pocket was growing thicker, slowly, week by week. She kept in it the money she managed to save from Leo’s reckless spending. It was a foundation rising for their future and perhaps — some day — abroad....

She was returning home from a meeting of excursion guides. There had been a political examination at the Excursion Center. A man with a close-cropped head had sat at a broad desk, and trembling, white-lipped guides had stood before him, one after the other, answering questions in jerking, unnaturally bright voices. Kira had recited adequately the appropriate sounds about the importance of historical excursions for the political education and class-consciousness of the working masses; she had been able to answer the question about the state of the latest strike of textile workers in Great Britain; she had known all about the latest decree of the Commissar of People’s Education in regard to the Schools for the Illiterates of the Turkestan; but she could not name the latest amount of coal produced by the mines of the Don basin.

“Don’t you read the newspapers, comrade?” the examining official had asked sternly.

“Yes, comrade.”

“I would suggest that you read them more thoroughly. We do not need limited specialists and old-fashioned academicians who know nothing outside their narrow professions. Our modern educators must be politically enlightened and show an active interest in our Soviet reality, in all the details of our state construction.... Next!”

She might be dismissed, Kira thought indifferently, walking home. She would not worry. She could not worry any longer. She would not allow herself to reach the state of Comrade Nesterova, an elderly guide who had been a school teacher for thirty years. Comrade Nesterova, between excursions, school classes, clubs, and cooking for a paralyzed mother, spent all her time reading the newspapers, memorizing every item word for word, preparing herself for the examination. Comrade Nesterova needed her job badly. But when she had stood before the examiner, Comrade Nesterova had not been able to utter a word; she had opened her mouth senselessly, without a sound, and collapsed suddenly, shrieking, in hysterical tears; she had had to be carried out of the room and a nurse had been called. Comrade Nesterova’s name had been crossed off the list of excursion guides.

Kira had forgotten the examination by the time she reached her house: she was thinking of Leo; she was wondering how she would find him that evening. The question arose, with a small twist of anxiety, every time she came home late and knew that she would find him there. He would leave in the morning, smiling and cheerful and brisk with energy; but she never knew what to expect at the end of the day. Sometimes she found him reading a foreign book, barely answering her greeting, refusing to eat, chuckling coldly once in a while at the bright lines of a world so far from their own. Sometimes she found him drunk, staggering across the room, laughing bitterly, tearing banknotes before her eyes when she spoke of the money he had spent. Sometimes she found him discussing art with Antonina Pavlovna, yawning, talking as if he did not hear his own words. Sometimes — rarely — he smiled at her, his eyes young and clear as they had been long ago, on their first meetings, and he pressed money into her hand, whispering: “Hide it from me.... For the escape. For Europe.... We’ll do it ... some day ... if you can keep me from thinking ... until then.... If we can only keep from thinking....”

She had learned to keep from thinking; she remembered only that he was Leo and that she had no life beyond the sound of his voice, the movements of his hands, the lines of his body — and that she had to stand on guard between him and the something immense, unnameable which was moving slowly toward him, which had swallowed so many. She would stand on guard; nothing else mattered; she never thought of the past; the future — no one around her thought of the future.

She never thought of Andrei; she never allowed herself to wonder what the days, perhaps the years, ahead of them would have to be. She knew that she had gone too far and could not retreat. She was wise enough to know that she could not leave him; she was brave enough not to attempt it. In averting a blow he would not be able to stand, she was paying him, silently, for what she had done. Some day, she felt dimly, she would have to end the payment; the day when, perhaps, a passage abroad would open for Leo and her; then she would end it without hesitation, since Leo would need her; then Leo would be safe; nothing else mattered.

“Kira?” a gay voice called from the bathroom, when she entered their room.

Leo came out, a towel in his hand, naked from the waist up, shaking drops of water off his face, throwing tangled hair off his forehead, smiling.

“I’m glad you’re back, Kira. I hate to come home and not find you here.”

He looked as if he had just stepped out of a stream on a hot summer day, and one could almost see the sun sparkling in the drops of water on his shoulders. He moved as if his whole body were a living will, straight, arrogant, commanding, a will and a body that could never bend because both had been born without the capacity to conceive of bending.

She stood still, afraid to approach him, afraid to shatter one of the rare moments when he looked what he could have been, what he was intended to be.

He approached her and his hand closed over her throat and he jerked her head back to hold her lips to his. There was a contemptuous tenderness in his movement, and a command, and hunger; he was not a lover, but a slave owner. Her arms holding him, her mouth drinking the glistening drops on his skin, she knew the answer, the motive for all her days, for all she had to bear and forget in those days, the only motive she needed.

Irina came to visit Kira, once in a while, on the rare evenings she could spare from her work at the Club. Irina laughed sonorously, and scattered cigarette ashes all over the room, and related the latest, most dangerous political anecdotes, and drew caricatures of all their acquaintances on the white table cloth.

But on the evenings when Leo was busy at the store, when Kira and Irina sat alone at a lighted fireplace, Irina did not always laugh. Sometimes, she sat silently for long minutes and when she raised her head and looked at Kira, her eyes were bewildered, pleading for help. Then she whispered, looking into the fire:

“Kira, I ... I’m afraid.... I don’t know why, it’s only at times, but I’m so afraid.... What’s going to happen to all of us? That’s what frightens me. Not the question itself, but that it’s a question you can’t ask anyone. You ask it and watch people, and you’ll see their eyes, and you’ll know that they feel the same thing, the same fear, and you can’t question them about it, but if you did, they couldn’t explain it, either ... You know, we’re all trying so hard not to think at all, not to think beyond the next day, and sometimes even not beyond the next hour.... Do you know what I believe? I believe they’re doing it deliberately. They don’t want us to think. That’s why we have to work as we do. And because there’s still time left after we’ve worked all day and stood in a few lines, we have the social activities to attend, and then the newspapers. Do you know that I almost got fired from the Club, last week? I was asked about the new oil wells near Baku and I didn’t know a damn thing about them. Why should I know about the oil wells near Baku if I want to earn my millet drawing rotten posters? Why do I have to memorize newspapers like poems? Sure, I need the kerosene for the Primus. But does it mean that in order to have kerosene in order to cook millet, I have to know the name of every stinking worker in every stinking well where the kerosene comes from? Two hours a day of reading news of state construction for fifteen minutes of cooking on the Primus? ... Well, and there’s nothing we can do about it. If we try, it’s worse. Take Sasha, for instance ... Oh, Kira! I’m ... I’m so afraid! ... He ... he ... Well, I don’t have to lie to you. You know what he’s doing. It’s a secret organization of some kind and they think they can overthrow the government. Set the people free. His duty to the people, Sasha says. And you and I know that any one of that great people would be only too glad to betray them all to the G.P.U. for an extra pound of linseed oil. They have secret meetings and they print things and distribute them in the factories. Sasha says we can’t expect help from abroad, it’s up to us to fight for our own freedom.... Oh, what can I do? I would like to stop him and I have no right to stop him. But I know they’ll get him. Remember the students they sent to Siberia last spring? Hundreds, thousands of them. You’ll never hear from any of them again. He’s an orphan, hasn’t a soul in the world, but me. I would try to stop him, but he won’t listen, and he’s right, only I love him. I love him. And he’ll go to Siberia some day. And what’s the use? Kira! What’s the use?”

Sasha Chernov turned the corner of his street, hurrying home. It was a dark October evening and the little hand that seized his coat belt seemed to have shot suddenly out of nowhere. Then he distinguished a shawl thrown over a little head and a pair of eyes staring up at him, huge, unblinking, terrified.

“Citizen Chernov,” the girl whispered, her trembling body pressed to his legs, stopping him, “don’t go home.”

He recognized his neighbor’s daughter. He smiled and patted her head, but, instinctively, stepped aside, into the shadow of a wall. “What’s the matter, Katia?”

“Mother said ...” the girl gulped, “mother said to tell you not to come home.... There are strange men there.... They’ve thrown your books all over the room....”

“Thank your mother for me, kid,” Sasha whispered and whirled about and disappeared behind the corner. He had had time to catch sight of a black limousine standing at the door of his house.

He raised his collar and walked swiftly. He walked into a restaurant and telephoned. A strange man’s voice answered gruffly. Sasha hung up without a word; his friend had been arrested.

They had had a secret meeting, that night. They had discussed plans, agitation among the workers, a new printing press. He grinned a little at the thought of the G.P.U. agents looking at the huge pile of anti-Soviet proclamations in his room. He frowned; tomorrow the proclamations would have been distributed into countless hands in Petrograd’s factories.

He jumped into a tramway and rode to another friend’s house. Turning the corner, he saw a black limousine at the door. He hurried away.

He rode to a railroad terminal and telephoned again, a different number. No one answered.

He walked, shuffling through a heavy slush, to another address. He saw no light in the window of his friend’s room. But he saw the janitor’s wife at the back yard gate, whispering excitedly to a neighbor. He did not approach the house.

He blew at his frozen, gloveless hands. He hurried to one more address. There was a light in the window for which he was looking. But on the window sill stood a vase of peculiar shape and that had been the danger signal agreed upon.

He took another tramway. It was late and the tramway was almost empty; it was lighted too brightly. A man in a military tunic entered at the next stop. Sasha got out.

He leaned against a dark lamp post and wiped his forehead. His forehead was burning with a sweat colder than the melting snow drops.

He was hurrying down a dark street when he saw a man in an old derby hat strolling casually on the other side. Sasha turned a corner, and walked two blocks, and turned again, and walked a block, and turned once more. Then he looked cautiously over his shoulder. The man in the old derby was studying the window of an apothecary shop three houses behind him.

Sasha walked faster. A gray snow fluttered over yellow lights over closed gates. The street was deserted. He heard no sound but that of his own steps crunching mud. But through the sounds, and through the distant grating of wheels, and through the muffled, rumbling, rising knocks somewhere in his chest, he heard the shuffling, soft as a breath, of steps following him.

He stopped short and looked back. The man in the derby was bending to tie a shoe lace. Sasha looked up. He was at the door of a house he knew well. It took the flash of a second. He was behind the door and, pressed to a wall in a dark lobby, without movement, without breath, he watched the square of the glass pane in the door. He saw the man in the derby pass by. He heard his steps crunching away, slowing down, stopping, hesitating, coming back. The derby swam past the glass square again. The steps creaked, louder and lower, back and forth, somewhere close by.

Sasha swung noiselessly up the stairs and knocked at a door.

Irina opened it.

He pressed a finger to his lips and whispered: “Is Victor home?”

“No,” she breathed.

“Is his wife?”

“She’s asleep.”

“May I come in? They’re after me.”

She pulled him in and closed the door slowly, steadily, taking a long, patient minute. The door touched the jamb without a sound.

Galina Petrovna came in with a bundle under her arm.

“Good evening, Kira.... My Lord, Kira, what a smell in this room!”

Kira rose indifferently, dropping a book. “Good evening, Mother. It’s the Lavrovs next door. They’re making sauerkraut.”

“My Lord! So that’s what he was mixing in the big barrel. He’s certainly uncivil, that old Lavrov. He didn’t even greet me. And after all, we’re relatives, in a way.”

Behind the door, a wooden paddle grated in a barrel of cabbage. Lavrov’s wife sighed monotonously: “Heavy are our sins ... heavy are our sins....” The boy was chipping wood in a corner and the crystal chandelier tinkled, shuddering, with every blow. The Lavrovs had moved into the room vacated by their daughter; they had shared a garret with two other families in a workers’ tenement; they had been glad to make the change.

Galina Petrovna asked: “Isn’t Leo home?”

“No,” said Kira, “I’m expecting him.”

“I’m on my way to evening classes,” said Galina Petrovna, “and I just dropped in for a minute ...” She hesitated, fingered her bundle, smiled apologetically, and said too casually: “I just dropped in to show you something, see if you like it ... maybe you’ll want to ... buy it.”

“To buy it?” Kira repeated, astonished. “What is it, Mother?”

Galina Petrovna had unwrapped the bundle; she was holding an old-fashioned gown of flowing white lace; its long train touched the floor; Galina Petrovna’s hesitant smile was almost shy.

“Why, Mother!” Kira gasped. “Your wedding gown!”

“You see,” Galina Petrovna explained very quickly, “it’s the school. I got my salary yesterday and ... and they had deducted so much for my membership in the Proletarian Society of Chemical Defense — and I didn’t even know I was a member — that I haven’t ... You see, your father needs new shoes — the cobbler’s refused to mend his old ones — and I was going to buy them this month ... but with the Chemical Defense and ... You see, you could alter it nicely — the dress, I mean — it’s good material, I’ve only worn it ... once.... And I thought, if you liked it, for an evening gown, maybe, or ...”

“Mother,” Kira said almost severely, and wondered at the little jerking break in her voice, “you know very well that if you need anything ...”

“I know, child, I know,” Galina Petrovna interrupted, and the wrinkles on her face were suddenly flushed with pink. “You’ve been a wonderful daughter, but ... with all you’ve given us already ... I didn’t feel I could ask ... and I thought I’d rather ... but then, if you don’t like the dress ...”

“Yes,” Kira said resolutely, “I like it. I’ll buy it, Mother.”

“I really don’t need it,” Galina Petrovna muttered, “and I don’t mind at all.”

“I was going to buy an evening gown, anyway,” Kira lied.

She found her pocketbook. It was stretched, stuffed full, bursting with crisp new bills. The night before, coming home late, kissing her, staggering, Leo had slipped his hand into his pocket and dropped crumpled bills all over the floor, and stuffed her pocketbook, laughing: “Go on, spend it! Plenty more coming. Just another little deal with Comrade Syerov. Brilliant Comrade Syerov. Spend it, I say!”

She emptied the pocketbook into Galina Petrovna’s hands. “Why, child!” Galina Petrovna protested. “Not all that! I didn’t want that much. It isn’t worth that!”

“Of course, it’s worth it. All that lovely lace.... Don’t let’s argue, Mother.... And thank you so much.”

Galina Petrovna crammed the bills into her old bag, with a frightened hurry. She looked at Kira and shook her head wisely, very sadly, and muttered: “Thank you, child....”

When she had gone, Kira tried on the wedding gown. It was long and plain as a medieval garment; its tight sleeves were low over the backs of her hands; its tight collar was high under her chin; it was all lace with no ornaments of any kind.

She stood before a tall mirror, her arms at her sides, palms up, her head thrown back, her hair tumbling down on her white shoulders, her body suddenly tall and too thin, fragile in the long, solemn folds of a lace delicate as a cobweb. She looked at herself as at a strange figure from somewhere many centuries away. And her eyes seemed suddenly very large, very dark, frightened.

She took the dress off and threw it into a corner of her wardrobe.

Leo came home with Antonina Pavlovna. She wore a sealskin coat and a turban of violet satin. Her heavy French perfume floated through the odor of sauerkraut from Lavrov’s quarters.

“Where’s the maid?” Leo asked.

“She had to go. We waited, but you’re late, Leo.”

“That’s all right. We had dinner at a restaurant, Tonia and I. You haven’t changed your mind, have you, Kira? Will you go with us to that opening?”

“I’m sorry, Leo, I can’t. I have a guides’ meeting tonight.... And, Leo, are you sure you want to go? This is the third night club opening in two weeks.”

“This is different,” said Antonina Pavlovna. “This is a real casino, just like abroad. Just like Monte Carlo.”

“Leo,” Kira sighed helplessly, “gambling again?”

He laughed: “Why not? We don’t have to worry if we lose a few hundreds, do we, Tonia?”

Antonina Pavlovna smiled, pointing her chin forward: “Certainly not. We just left Koko, Kira Alexandrovna.” She lowered her voice confidentially. “There’s another shipment of white flour coming from Syerov day after tomorrow. How that boy can handle his business! I admire him tremendously.”

“I’ll jump into my dinner jacket,” Leo said. “It won’t take me a second. Do you mind turning to the window for a moment, Tonia?”

“Certainly,” Antonina Pavlovna smiled coquettishly, “I do mind. But I promise not to peek, no matter how much I’d love to.”

She stood at the window, putting a friendly hand on Kira’s shoulder. “Poor Koko!” Antonina Pavlovna sighed. “He works so much. He has a meeting tonight — the Food Trust’s Employees’ Educational Circle. He’s vice-secretary. He has to keep up his social activity, you know.” She winked significantly. “He has so many meetings and sessions and things. I’d positively wilt of loneliness if our dear Leo wasn’t gallant enough to take me out once in a while.”

Kira looked at Leo’s tall black figure in his immaculate dinner clothes, as she had looked at herself in the medieval wedding gown: as if he were a being from many centuries away, and it seemed strange to see him standing by the table with the Primus.

He took Antonina Pavlovna’s arm with a gesture that belonged in a foreign film scene, and they left. When the door had closed behind them in Lavrov’s room, Kira heard Lavrov’s wife grunting: “And they say private traders don’t make no money.”

“Dictatorship of the Proletariat!” Lavrov growled and spat loudly.

Kira put on her old coat. She was not going to the excursion guides’ meeting. She was going to the pavilion in a lonely palace garden.

A fire was burning in Andrei’s fireplace. The logs creaked with sharp little explosions, long hulks broken into checks of an even, transparent, luminous red, and little orange flames swayed, fluttering, meeting, curving softly, dying suddenly, leaping up again, little blue tongues licking glowing coals; over the logs, as if suspended motionless in the air, long red flames tapered into the darkness of the chimney; yellow sparks shot upward, dying against black sooted bricks. An orange glow danced, trembling, on the white brocaded walls, on the posters of Red soldiers, smokestacks and tractors. One of Leda’s feet drooped over the edge of the mantelpiece, its toes pink in the glow.

Kira sat on a box before the fireplace. Andrei sat at her feet, his face was buried in her knees; his hand caressed slowly the silken arch of her foot; his fingers dropped to the floor and came back to her tight silk stocking.

“... and then, when you’re here,” he whispered, “it’s worth all the torture, all the waiting.... And then I don’t have to think any more....”

He raised his head. He looked at her and pronounced words she had never heard from him before: “I’m so tired....”

She held his head, her two hands spread on his temples. She asked: “What’s the matter, Andrei?”

He turned away, to the fire. He said: “My Party.” Then he whirled back to her. “You know it, Kira. Perhaps you knew it long ago. You were right. Perhaps you’re right about many things, those things we’ve tried not to discuss.”

She whispered: “Andrei, do you want to discuss it — with me? I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You can’t hurt me. Don’t you think I can see it all, myself? Don’t you think I know what that great revolution of ours has come to? We shoot one speculator and a hundred others hire taxis on Nevsky every evening. We raze villages to the ground, we fire machine guns into rows of peasants crazed with misery, when they kill a Communist. And ten of the avenged victim’s Party brothers drink champagne at the home of a man with diamond studs in his shirt. Where did he get the diamonds? Who’s paying for the champagne? We don’t look into that too closely.”

“Andrei, did you ever think that it was you — your Party — who drove the men you call speculators into what they are doing — because you left them no choice?”

“I know it.... We were to raise men to our own level. But they don’t rise, the men we’re ruling, they don’t grow, they’re shrinking. They’re shrinking to a level no human creatures ever reached before. And we’re sliding slowly down into their ranks. We’re crumbling, like a wall, one by one. Kira, I’ve never been afraid. I’m afraid, now. It’s a strange feeling. I’m afraid to think. Because ... because I think, at times, that perhaps our ideals have had no other result.”

“That’s true! The fault was not in men, but in the nature of your ideals. And I ... No, Andrei, I won’t speak about it. I wish I could help you. But of all people, I’m the one who can help you least. You know it.”

He laughed softly: “But you are helping me, Kira. You’re the only one in this whole world who’s helping me.”

She whispered: “Why?”

“Because, no matter what happens, I still have you. Because, no matter what human wreckage I see around me, I still have you. And — in you — I still know what a human being can be.”

“Andrei,” she whispered, “are you sure you know me?”

He whispered, his lips in her hand so that she heard the words as if she were gathering them, one by one, in the hollow of her palm: “Kira, the highest thing in a man is not his god. It’s that in him which knows the reverence due a god. And you, Kira, are my highest reverence....”

“It’s me,” a voice whispered behind the door, “Marisha. Let me in, Irina.”

Irina unlocked the door, cautiously, uncertainly. Marisha stood on the threshold with a loaf of bread in her hand.

“Here,” she whispered, “I brought you something to eat. Both of you.”

“Marisha!” Irina screamed.

“Keep quiet!” Marisha whispered with a cautious glance down the corridor. “Sure, I know. But don’t worry. My mouth’s shut. Here, take this. It’s my own bread ration. No one will notice. I know why you didn’t eat any breakfast this morning. But you can’t keep that up.”

Irina seized her arm, jerked her into the room, closed the door and giggled hysterically: “I ... You see ... oh, Marisha, I didn’t expect it of you to ...” Her hair hung over one eye, the other eye was full of tears.

Marisha whispered: “I know how it is. Hell! You love him.... Well, I don’t know anything officially, so I don’t have to tell anything, if they ask me. But for God’s sake don’t keep him here long. I’m not so sure about Victor.”

“Do you think he ... suspects?”

“I don’t know. He’s acting mighty queer. And if he knows — I’m afraid of him, Irina.”

“It’s just till tonight,” Irina whispered, “he’s leaving ... tonight.”

“I’ll try to watch Victor for you.”

“Marisha ... I can’t thank you ... I ...”

“Oh, hell! Nothing to cry about.”

“I’m not crying ... I ... It’s just ... I haven’t slept for two nights and ... Marisha, you’re so ... I thank you and ...”

“Oh, that’s all right. Well, so long. I won’t hang around here.”

When the door closed, Irina listened cautiously till Marisha’s steps died down the corridor; then she stood listening for other sounds, trembling; the house was silent. She locked the door and tiptoed across the room, and slipped noiselessly into the little storage closet that opened by her bed. Sasha sat on an old trunk in the closet, watching a sparrow behind a dusty glass pane on the sill of a tiny window high under the ceiling.

“Irina,” he whispered, his eyes on the window, “I think I’d better go now.”

“Why, of course not! I won’t let you.”

“Listen, I’ve been here for two days. I didn’t intend to do that. I’m sorry I gave in to you. If anything happens — do you know what they’ll do to you for this?”

“If anything happens to you,” she whispered, slipping her arm around his big, stooped shoulders, “I don’t care what they do to me.”

“I was to expect it some day. But you ... I don’t want to drag you into it.”

“Listen, nothing will happen. I have your ticket for Baku. And the clothes. Victor has a Party meeting tonight. We’ll sneak out safely. And, anyway, you can’t go now, in broad daylight. The street is watched.”

“I almost wish I had let them take me without ever coming here. Irina, I’m so sorry!”

“Darling, I’m so glad!” She laughed soundlessly. “I really think I’ve saved you. They’ve arrested everyone of your group. I’ve pumped that out of Victor. Everyone but you.”

“But if ...”

“Oh, we’re safe now. Just a few more hours to wait.” She crouched on a box by his side, dropping her head on his shoulder, brushing the hair out of her feverish, sparkling eyes. “Then, when you get abroad, be sure and write to me the very first day, remember? The very first.”

“Sure,” he said dully.

“Then I’ll manage to get out somehow. And just think of it! Abroad! We’ll go to a night club and you’ll look so funny in full dress clothes! Really, I think the tailors will refuse to fit you.”

“Probably,” he said, trying to smile.

“And then we’ll see girls dancing in funny costumes, just like the ones I draw. And think! I can get a job designing fashions and costumes and stage sets. No more posters for me. Not a single poster! I won’t draw another proletarian so long as I live!”

“I hope so.”

“But, you know, I must warn you. I’m a very bad housekeeper. Really, I’ll be impossible to live with. Your steak will be burned for dinner — oh, yes, we’ll have steak every day! — and your socks won’t be darned, and I won’t let you complain. If you try to — I’ll batter the life out of you, your poor little helpless, delicate creature!” She laughed hysterically, and buried her face on his shoulder, and bit his shirt, for her laughter was slipping into sounds that were not laughter.

He kissed her hair; he whispered bravely: “I won’t complain at all if you can go ahead with your drawing. That’s one more crime I’ll never forgive this country. I think you could be a great artist. And listen, do you know that you’ve never given me a drawing, and I’ve asked you so often?”

“Oh, yes!” she sighed. “I’ve promised them to so many people, but I never concentrate long enough to finish one properly. Here’s a promise, though: I’ll draw two dozen pictures — there, abroad — and you can stick them all over the walls of our house. Sasha, our house !”

His arms closed tightly over a trembling body with a tousled head turned away from him.

“This mush,” said Victor, “is burned.”

“I’m sorry,” Irina muttered, “I guess I didn’t watch it closely and I ...”

“Is there anything else for lunch?”

“No, Victor, I’m sorry. There’s nothing in the house and ...”

“There’s never anything in this house! Funny, how the food seems to have disappeared — these last few days.”

“No more than usual,” said Marisha. “And remember, I didn’t get my bread ration this week.”

“Well, why didn’t you?”

“I was too busy to stand in line and ...”

“Why couldn’t Irina get it?”

“Victor,” said Vasili Ivanovitch, “your sister is not feeling well.”

“So I notice.”

“I’ll eat your mush, if you don’t want it,” said Acia, reaching for his plate.

“You’ve had enough, Acia,” Irina protested. “You have to hurry back to school.”

“Oh, hell!” said Acia.

“Acia! Where did you learn such language?”

“I don’t wanna go back,” Acia whined. “We’ve gotta decorate Lenin’s Nook this afternoon. Oh, I hate gluing pictures outta magazines on their old red blotters. I got bawled out twice, ‘cause I get them on crooked.”

“You hurry and get your coat. You’ll be late.”

Acia sighed with a resigned glance at the empty lunch dishes and shuffled out.

Victor leaned back in his chair, his hands in his pockets, and looked at Irina closely. “Not going to work today, Irina?” he asked casually.

“No. I’ve telephoned them. I don’t feel well. I think I have a temperature.”

“It’s better not to take the chance of going out in this awful weather,” said Marisha. “Look at it snowing.”

“No,” said Victor, “Irina shouldn’t take chances.”

“I’m not afraid,” said Irina, “only I think it’s safe to stay in.”

“No,” said Victor, “you’ve never been afraid of anything. A commendable trait — sometimes. And sometimes — it may go too far.”

“Just what do you mean?”

“You really should be more careful — of your health. Why don’t you call a doctor?”

“Oh, it’s not necessary. I’m not that bad. I’ll be all right in a few days.”

“Yes, I think so,” said Victor, rising.

“Where are you going today, Victor?” Marisha asked.

“Why do you have to know?”

“Oh, nothing ... I ... well ... You see, I thought if you weren’t too busy, I’d like you to come over to my Club and say a few words about something. They’ve all heard about my prominent husband and I’ve promised to bring you to address them — you know, something on Electrification or modern airplanes or something.”

“Sorry,” said Victor, “some other time. I’ve got to see a man today. About a job. About that job on the dam.”

“May I go with you, Victor?”

“Certainly not. What’s this? Checking up on me? Jealous or something?”

“Oh, no, no, darling. No. Nothing.”

“Well, then, shut up. I’m not going to have a wife tagging me around.”

“Are you looking for a new job, Victor?” Vasili Ivanovitch asked.

“Well, what do you think? Think I’ll settle down to a ration-card slave’s drudgery for the rest of my life? Well, you’ll see.”

“Are you sure?” the official asked.

“I’m sure,” said Victor.

“Who else is responsible?”

“No one. Just my sister.”

“Who else lives in your apartment, Comrade Dunaev?”

“My wife, my father, and my little sister — she’s just a child. My father doesn’t suspect a thing. My wife is a scatter-brained creature who wouldn’t notice anything right under her nose. And anyway, she’s a member of the Komsomol. There are also tenants, but they never come in contact with our side of the apartment.”

“I see. Thank you, Comrade Dunaev.”

“I’m merely doing my duty.”

The official rose and extended his hand. “Comrade Dunaev, in the name of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, I thank you for your courage. They are still few, those whose devotion to the State rises above all personal ties of blood and family. That is an attitude of the future, toward which we are trying to educate our backward people. That is the highest proof of loyalty a Party man can give. I shall see to it that your heroism does not remain unknown.”

“I do not deserve this high praise, comrade,” said Victor. “The only value of my example is in showing our Party that the family is an institution of the past, which should not be considered when judging a member’s loyalty to our great Collective.”

VIII

THE DOOR BELL RANG.

Irina shuddered and dropped her newspaper. Marisha lowered her book.

“I’ll open it,” said Victor, rising.

Irina looked at the dining-room clock. One hour was left before the train’s departure. And Victor had not gone to the Party meeting; and he would not leave the house.

Vasili Ivanovitch was carving a paper knife, sitting by the window. Acia yelled from somewhere under the table, rustling old magazines: “Say, is this a picture of Lenin? I gotta cut out ten of them for the Nook and I can’t find that many. Is this Lenin or is it a Czechoslovakian general? I’ll be damned if I can ...”

They heard the steps of many heavy boots in the lobby. The door was thrown open. A man in a leather jacket stood on the threshold, a slip of paper in his hand. Two soldiers in peaked caps stood behind him, their hands on the butts of the guns at their belts. A third one stood at the entrance door in the lobby, holding a bayonet.

They heard a scream; it came from Marisha. She jumped up, pressing both hands to her mouth. Vasili Ivanovitch rose slowly. Acia stared up from under the table, her mouth hanging open. Irina stood very straight, too straight, leaning back a little.

“Search warrant,” said the man in the leather jacket, throwing the paper on the table, and motioning to his soldiers. “This way!”

They walked down the corridor to Irina’s room.

They threw the closet door open. Sasha stood on the threshold, looking at them with a somber grin.

Vasili Ivanovitch gasped, in the corridor, behind the soldiers. Acia yelled: “Oh, God! That’s why she wouldn’t let me open ...” Marisha kicked her ankles. A drawing on the edge of a table slid down, rustling, fluttering to the floor.

“Which one is the Citizen Irina Dunaeva?” asked the man in the leather jacket.

“I am,” said Irina.

“Listen,” Sasha jerked forward. “She had nothing to do with it ... she ... it’s not her fault.... I threatened her and ...”

“With what?” the man in the leather jacket asked, his voice expressionless.

A soldier ran his hands swiftly down Sasha’s clothes. “No weapons,” he reported.

“All right,” said the man in the leather jacket. “Take him down to the car. The Citizen Dunaeva, too. And the old man. Search the apartment.”

“Comrade,” Vasili Ivanovitch approached the leader, his voice steady, his hands shaking. “Comrade, my daughter couldn’t be guilty of ...”

“You’ll have a chance to talk later,” said the man and turned to Victor. “Are you a Party member?”

“Yes,” said Victor.

“Your card?” Victor showed his Party card. The man pointed to Marisha: “Your wife?”

“Yes.”

“All right. These two can stay. Get your coats, citizens.”

On the floor, melting snow trailed the soldiers’ boots. A lamp with a shade that had slipped sidewise, threw a broken patch of light into the corridor, on Marisha’s face, greenish-white, with sunken eyes staring at Victor.

The soldier on guard in the lobby opened the door to admit the Upravdom. The Upravdom’s coat was thrown hurriedly over his shoulders, over a dirty, unbuttoned shirt. He wailed, clutching his fingers with a dry little crackle of stretched joints: “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! ... Comrade Commissar, I knew nothing about this. Comrade Commissar, I swear....” The soldier slammed the door in the faces of curious neighbors gathered on the stair-landing.

Irina kissed Acia and Marisha. Victor approached her, his face frozen in anxious concern: “Irina, I’m so sorry.... I don’t understand.... I’ll see what I can do and ...”

Her eyes stopped him; they were looking at him fixedly; they looked suddenly like the eyes of Maria Petrovna in the old portrait. She turned and followed the soldiers, without a word. She went first; Sasha and Vasili Ivanovitch followed.

Vasili Ivanovitch was released in three days.

Sasha Chernov was sentenced to ten years in a Siberian prison, for counter-revolutionary activity.

Irina Dunaeva was sentenced to ten years in a Siberian prison, for assisting a counter-revolutionary.

Vasili Ivanovitch tried to see officials, got a few letters of introduction to a few assistant secretaries, spent hours huddled in the corners of unheated waiting rooms, made telephone calls, trying to keep his voice from trembling. Nothing could be done and he knew it.

When he came home, he did not speak to Victor. He did not look at Victor. He did not ask for Victor’s help.

Marisha, alone, greeted Vasili Ivanovitch when he came home. She said timidly: “Here, Vasili Ivanovitch, have some dinner. I cooked the noodle soup you like — for you, specially.” She blushed, grateful and embarrassed, when he answered with a silent, absent-minded smile.

Vasili Ivanovitch saw Irina in a cell of the G.P.U. He locked himself in his room for many hours and cried silently, happily, on the day when he arranged for her last request to be granted. She had asked permission to marry Sasha before they were sent away.

The wedding was performed in a bare hall of the G.P.U. Armed guards stood at the door. Vasili Ivanovitch and Kira were the witnesses. Sasha’s lips twitched. Irina was very calm. She had been calm ever since her arrest. She looked a little thinner, a little paler; her skin seemed transparent; her eyes too big; her fingers were steady on Sasha’s arm. She raised her face for his kiss after the ceremony, with a tender, compassionate smile.

The official whom Vasili Ivanovitch saw on the following day said: “Well, you got what you wanted. Only I don’t see what good that fool rigmarole will do them. Don’t you know that their prisons are three hundred and fifty kilometers apart?”

“No,” said Vasili Ivanovitch and sat down heavily. “I didn’t know that.”

But Irina had expected it. That had been the reason for the wedding; she had hoped it would influence the decision. It had not.

It was Vasili Ivanovitch’s last crusade. No one could appeal a sentence of the G.P.U. But a prison assignment could be changed; if he could get the proper influence, the proper connections.... Vasili Ivanovitch rose at dawn. Marisha forced him to swallow a cup of black coffee, stopping him in the lobby on his way out, pushing the mug into his hands, trembling in her long nightgown. Night found him in a casino lobby, pushing his way through a crowd, crumpling his hat in both hands, stopping an imposing figure he had been expecting for hours, saying softly: “Comrade Commissar ... just a few words ... please ... Comrade Commissar ...” He was thrown out by an attendant in uniform, once, and lost his hat.

He made appointments and obtained interviews. He entered a solemn office, his old, patched coat brushed thoroughly, his shoes shined, his white hair parted neatly. He stood before a desk, and his tall shoulders that had carried a heavy rifle through many dark nights, through many Siberian forests, many years ago, sagged helplessly. He looked into a stern face and said:

“Comrade Commissar, that’s all I ask. Just that. It’s not much, is it? Just send them to the same place. I know they’ve been counter-revolutionaries and you have a right to punish them. I’m not complaining, Comrade Commissar. It’s ten years, you know, but that’s all right. Only send them to the same place. What difference does it make to you? What difference does it make to the State? They’re so young. They love each other. It’s ten years, but you know and I know that they’ll never come back — it’s Siberia, and the cold and the hunger, and the conditions ...”

“What’s that?” a stern voice interrupted him.

“Comrade Commissar, I ... I didn’t mean anything ... No ... I didn’t mean ... Only suppose they get sick or something? Irina is not very strong. They’re not sentenced to death. And while they’re alive — couldn’t you let them be together? It would mean so much to them — and so little to anyone else. I’m an old man, Comrade Commissar, and she’s my daughter. I know Siberia. It would help me, if I knew that she wasn’t alone — there — that she had a man with her, her husband. I’m not sure I know how to ask you, Comrade Commissar, but you must forgive me. You see, I’ve never asked a favor in my life. You probably think that I’m indignant and hate you all in my heart. But I don’t. I won’t. Just do that one thing — that last thing — send them to the same prison — and I’ll bless you as long as I live.”

He was refused.

“I heard the whole story,” said Andrei, when Kira spoke to him about it. “Do you know who denounced Irina?”

“No,” said Kira, and turned away, and added: “I suspect it, though. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to hear it.”

“I won’t.”

“I didn’t want to ask for your help, Andrei. I know I can’t expect you to intercede for a counter-revolutionary, but couldn’t you ask them to change her prison assignment and have them sent to the same place? It wouldn’t be treason on your part, and it really makes no difference to your officials.”

He held her hand and said: “Certainly. I’ll try.”

In an office of the G.P.U., the executive looked at Andrei coldly and asked:

“Pleading for a ... relative, aren’t you, Comrade Taganov?”

“I don’t understand you, comrade,” Andrei answered slowly, looking straight at him.

“Oh, yes, I think you do. And I think you should understand that keeping a mistress who is the daughter of a former factory owner, is not the best way to strengthen your Party standing.... Don’t look startled, Comrade Taganov. You really didn’t think it was unknown to us, did you? And you working in the G.P.U.! You surprise me.”

“My personal affairs ...”

“Your what kind of affairs, Comrade Taganov?”

“If you’re speaking of Citizen Argounova ...”

“I am speaking of Citizen Argounova. And I’d suggest that you use some of the methods and authority which your position gives you, to investigate Citizen Argounova a little — for your own sake, while we’re on the subject.”

“I know everything I have to know about Citizen Argounova. You don’t have to bring her into this. She is absolutely blameless politically.”

“Oh, politically? And in other respects?”

“If you’re speaking as my superior, I refuse to listen to anything about Citizen Argounova except her political standing.”

“Very well. I don’t have to say anything. I was speaking merely as a friend. You should be careful, Comrade Taganov. You don’t have many friends left — in the Party.”

Andrei could do nothing to change Irina’s sentence.

“Hell!” said Leo, dipping his head into a basin of cold water, for he had come home very late the night before, “I’m going to see that skunk Syerov. He has a big boy friend in the G.P.U. He’ll have to do something if I tell him to.”

“I wish you’d try, Leo,” said Kira.

“The damned sadists! What difference should it make to them if the poor kids rot together in their infernal prison? They know they’ll never come back alive.”

“Don’t tell him that, Leo. Ask him nicely.”

“I’ll ask him nicely!”

In Pavel Syerov’s outer office, the secretary sat typing intently, biting her lower lip. Ten visitors were waiting before the wooden railing. Leo walked straight through the office, swung the little gate open and threw at the secretary:

“I want to see Comrade Syerov. At once.”

“But, citizen,” the secretary gasped, “you’re not allowed to ...”

“I said I want to see him at once.”

“Comrade Syerov is very busy, citizen, and there are all these citizens here waiting, and he can’t see you out of turn ...”

“You go and tell him it’s Lev Kovalensky. He’ll see me fast enough.”

The secretary rose and backed into Syerov’s office, staring at Leo, as if she expected him to draw a gun. She returned, looking more frightened, and said, gulping: “Go right in, Citizen Kovalensky.”

When the door closed and they were alone, Pavel Syerov jumped up and hissed at Leo, his voice a muffled roar: “You damn fool! Are you insane? How dare you come here?”

Leo laughed, his icy laughter that was like a master’s hand slapping an insolent slave’s face. “You’re not speaking to me, are you?” he asked. “Particularly when you’re worried about caution?”

“Get out of here! I can’t talk to you here!”

“You don’t have to,” said Leo, sitting down comfortably. “I’ll do the talking.”

“Do you realize whom you’re talking to? You’re demented or else I’ve never seen insolence in my life!”

“Repeat that to yourself,” said Leo, “with my compliments.”

“Hell!” said Syerov, dropping into his chair. “What do you want?”

“You have a friend in the G.P.U.”

“I’m glad you remember that.”

“I do. That’s why I’m here. I have two friends sentenced to ten years in Siberia. They’ve just been married. They’re being sent to prisons hundreds of kilometers apart. I want you to see that they’re sent together, to the same place.”

“Uh-huh,” said Pavel Syerov. “I’ve heard about the case. A beautiful example of Party loyalty on the part of Comrade Victor Dunaev.”

“Don’t you think it’s slightly ludicrous, you talking of Party loyalty to me?”

“Well, what are you going to do, if I don’t lift a finger about the case?”

“You know,” said Leo. “I could do a lot.”

“Sure,” said Syerov complaisantly. “I know you could. I also know you won’t. Because, you see, to drown me, you’d have to be the stone tied around my neck, and I don’t think you’ll go that far in your noble unselfishness.”

“Listen,” said Leo, “drop the official pose. We’re both crooks, and you know it, and we hate each other, and we both know it, but we’re in the same boat and it’s not a very steady one. Don’t you think it would be wiser if we helped each other as much as we could?”

“Yes, I sure do. And your part of it is to keep as far away from here as you can. And if you weren’t so damn blinded by your old patrician arrogance, which it’s about time to forget, you’d know better than to ask me to intercede for any cousins of yours, which would be as good as posting on a poster my exact connection with you.”

“You damn coward!”

“Well, maybe I am. And maybe it would do you good to acquire some of the same quality. You’d better not come around demanding any favors from me. You’d better remember that even if we are chained together — for the time being — I have more opportunities than you to break the chain.”

Leo rose. At the door he turned and said: “As you wish. Only it would have been wiser of you — in case the chain is ever in my hands....”

“Yes. And it would have been wiser of you if you hadn’t come here — in case it’s ever in mine.... And listen,” he lowered his voice, “you can do something for me and you’d better do it. Tell that hog Morozov to send the money. He’s late again on the last deal. I told him I’m not to be kept waiting.”

Marisha said hesitantly, trying not to look at Victor: “Listen, don’t you think that if I saw someone and asked ... You know, just to send them to the same prison ... it wouldn’t make any difference to anyone ... and ...”

Victor seized her wrist and swung her around so savagely that she squealed with pain. “Listen,” he said through his teeth, “you should keep as far out of it as your fool legs will carry you. It would be fine for me, wouldn’t it? My wife begging for counter-revolutionaries!”

“But it’s only ...”

“Listen! You breathe only one word — understand? — just one to any friend of yours — and you’ll get a divorce notice the next morning!”

That night, Vasili Ivanovitch came home, looking calmer than usual. He took off his coat and folded his gloves neatly, meticulously on the mirror-stand in the lobby. He did not look at the dinner Marisha had set out for him in the dining room. He said: “Victor, I want to speak to you.”

Victor followed him reluctantly to his office.

Vasili Ivanovitch did not sit down. He stood, his hands hanging limply by his sides, and looked at his son.

“Victor,” said Vasili Ivanovitch, “you know what I might say. But I won’t say it. I won’t ask questions. It’s a strange time we’re living in. Many years ago, I felt sure of what I thought. I knew when I was right and I knew when to condemn. I can’t do it now. I don’t know whether I can condemn anyone for anything. There’s so much horror and suffering around us that I don’t want to brand anyone as guilty. We’re poor, bewildered creatures — all of us — who suffer so much and know so little! I can’t blame you for anything you might have done. I don’t know your reasons. I won’t ask. I know I won’t understand. No one understands each other these days. You’re my son, Victor. I love you. I can’t help it, as you can’t help being what you are. You see, I’ve wanted a son ever since I was younger than you are now. I’ve never trusted men. And so I wanted a man of my own, at whom I could look proudly, directly, as I’m looking at you now. When you were a little boy, Victor, you cut your finger, once, a deep cut, clear to the bone. You came in from the garden to have it bandaged. Your lips were blue, but you didn’t cry. You didn’t make a sound. Your mother was so angry at me because I laughed happily. But, you see, I was proud of you. I knew I would always be proud of you.... You know, you were so funny, when your mother made you wear a velvet suit with a big lace collar. You were so angry — and so pretty! You had curly hair ... Well, all that doesn’t matter. It’s only that I can’t say anything against you, Victor. I can’t think anything against you. So I won’t question you. I’ll only ask you for one favor: you can’t save your sister, I know it; but ask your friends — I know you have friends who can do it — just ask them to have her sent to the same prison with Sasha. Just that. It won’t interfere with the sentence and it won’t compromise you. It’s one last favor to her — a death-bed favor, Victor, for you know you’ll never see her again. Just do that — and the book will be closed. I’ll never look back. I’ll never try to read some of the pages which I don’t want to see. That will settle all our accounts. I’ll still go on having a son, and even if it’s hard, sometimes, not to think, one can do it, these days, one has to, and you’ll help me. Just one favor, in exchange for ... in exchange for all that’s past.”

“Father,” said Victor, “you must believe me, I’d do anything in my power, if I could.... I’ve tried, but ...”

“Victor, we won’t argue. I’m not asking whether you can do it. I know you can. Don’t explain. Just say yes or no. Only, if it’s no, Victor, then it’s the end for you and me. Then I have no son any longer. There’s a limit, Victor, to how much I can forgive.”

“But, Father, it is thoroughly impossible, and ...”

“Victor, I said if it’s no, I have no son any longer. Think of how much I’ve lost these last few years. Now what is the answer?”

“I can do nothing.”

Vasili Ivanovitch straightened his shoulders slowly, the two lines that cut his cheeks, from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth, looked set, firm, emotionless. He turned and walked to the door.

“Where are you going?” Victor asked.

“That,” said Vasili Ivanovitch, “does not concern you any longer.”

In the dining room, Marisha and Acia were sitting at the table, staring at the plates of a cold dinner they had not touched.

“Acia,” said Vasili Ivanovitch, “get your coat and hat.”

“Father!” Marisha’s chair clattered back as she leaped to her feet; it was the first time she had ever addressed that word to Vasili Ivanovitch.

“Marisha,” Vasili Ivanovitch said gently, “I’ll telephone you in a few days ... when I find a place to live. Will you then send my things over ... what’s left of mine here?”

“You can’t go!” said Marisha, her voice breaking. “With no job and no money and ... This is your house.”

“This is your husband’s house,” said Vasili Ivanovitch. “Come on, Acia.”

“May I take my stamp collection along?” Acia muttered.

“Take your stamp collection along.”

Marisha knelt on the window sill, her nose flattened against the glass, her back heaving in silent sobs, and watched them go. Vasili Ivanovitch’s shoulders drooped and, under the street lantern, she could see the white patch of his bare neck, between the collar of his old coat and the black fur cap on his bowed head; he held Acia’s hand, and her arm was stretched up to his, and she seemed very small next to his huge bulk; she shuffled obediently, heels first, through a brown slush, and clutched the big stamp album to her breast.

Kira saw Irina in a cell of the G.P.U. on the evening of her departure. Irina smiled calmly; her smile was soft, wondering; her eyes, in a face that looked like wax, stared at Kira gently, vaguely, as if fixed, with quiet astonishment, on something distant that she was struggling to understand.

“I’ll send you mittens,” said Kira, trying to smile, “woolen ones. Only I warn you, I’ll knit them myself, so don’t be surprised if you won’t be able to wear them.”

“No,” said Irina, “but you can send me a snapshot. It will look nice: Kira Argounova knitting!”

“And you know,” said Kira, “you’ve never given me that drawing you promised.”

“That’s right, I haven’t. Father has them all. Tell him to let you select any that you want. Tell him I said so. Still, it’s not what I promised you. I promised a real portrait of Leo.”

“Well, we’ll have to wait for that till you come back.”

“Yes.” Then she jerked her head and laughed. “It’s nice of you, Kira, only you don’t have to fool me. I’m not afraid. But I know. Remember, when they sent those University students to Siberia? You don’t hear of any of them coming back. It’s the scurvy or consumption, or both.... Oh, it’s all right. I know it.”

“Irina ...”

“Come on, we don’t have to be emotional, even if it is the last time.... There’s something I wanted to ask you, Kira. You don’t have to answer, if you don’t want to, it’s just curiosity: what is there between you and Andrei Taganov?”

“I’ve been his mistress for over a year,” said Kira. “You see, Leo’s aunt in Berlin didn’t ...”

“It’s just as I thought. Well, kid, I don’t know which one of us needs more courage to face the future.”

“I’ll be afraid only on a day that will never come,” said Kira. “The day when I give up.”

“I’ve given up,” said Irina, “and I’m not afraid. Only there’s something I would like to understand. And I don’t think anyone can explain it. You see, I know it’s the end for me. I know it, but I can’t quite believe it, I can’t feel it. It’s so strange. There’s your life. You begin it, feeling that it’s something so precious and rare, so beautiful that it’s like a sacred treasure. Now it’s over, and it doesn’t make any difference to anyone, and it isn’t that they are indifferent, it’s just that they don’t know, they don’t know what it means, that treasure of mine, and there’s something about it that they should understand. I don’t understand it myself, but there’s something that should be understood by all of us. Only what is it, Kira? What?”

Political convicts traveled in a separate car; men with bayonets stood at its doors. Irina and Sasha sat facing each other on hard wooden benches; they had traveled together part of the way, but they were approaching a junction where Irina was to be transferred to another train. The car windows were black and lustrous, as if sheets of dusty patent leather had been pasted behind the glass panes; only the fluffy, wet stars of snow, smashing against the glass, showed that there was an earth beyond the panes, and wind, and a black sky. A lantern trembled high under the ceiling, as if every knock of the wheels under the floor kicked the yellow flame out, and it fluttered and came back again, shivering, clutching the little stub of candle. A boy in an old green student’s cap, alone by a window, sang softly, monotonously, through his teeth, and his voice sounded as if he were grinning, although his cheeks were motionless:

“Hey, little apple!

Where are you rolling?”

Sasha held Irina’s hands. She was smiling, her chin buried in an old woolen scarf. Her hands were cold. A white vapor fluttered at her lips as she whispered: “We must not think of it as ten years. It sounds so long, doesn’t it? But it really isn’t. You know, some philosopher said that time is only an illusion or something like that. Who was it that said it? Well, it doesn’t matter. Time can pass very quickly, if one stops thinking of it. We’ll still be young, when we’ll ... when we’ll be free. So let’s promise each other not to think of anything else. Now, promise?”

“Yes,” he whispered, looking at her hands. “Irina, if only I hadn’t ...”

“And that’s something you’ve already promised me never to mention again, not even to yourself. Darling, don’t you see that it’s really easier for me — this way — than to have remained at home, with you sent here alone? This way, I’ll feel that we have something in common, that we’re sharing something. Aren’t we?”

He buried his face in her hands and said nothing.

“And listen,” she whispered, bending down to his blond hair, “I know it won’t always be easy to remain cheerful. Sometimes one thinks: oh, what’s the use of remaining brave just for one’s pride’s sake? So let’s agree on this: we’ll both be brave for each other. When you feel the worst, just smile — and think that you’re doing something for me. And I’ll do the same. That will keep us together. And you know, it’s very important to remain cheerful. We’ll last longer.”

“What for?” he asked. “We won’t last long enough anyway.”

“Sasha, what nonsense!” She pulled his head up by a strand of hair, looking straight into his eyes, as if she believed her every word. “Two strong, healthy creatures like us! And, anyway, I’m sure those stories are exaggerated — if you mean the hunger and the consumption. Nothing is ever as bad as it’s painted.”

The wheels grated under the floor, slowing down.

“Oh, God!” Sasha moaned. “Is that the station?”

The car jerked forward and the wheels went on knocking under the floor, like a mallet striking faster and faster.

“No,” Irina whispered breathlessly, “not yet.”

The student by the window wailed, as if he were grinning, to the rhythm of the wheels:

“Hey, little apple,

Where are you rolling?”

And he repeated, slowly, biting into every word, as if the words were an answer to a question, and the question itself, and a deadly certainty of some silent thought of his own: “Hey ... little ... apple ... where ... are ... you ... rolling?”

Irina was whispering: “Listen, here’s something we can do: we can look at the moon, sometimes — and, you know, it’s the same moon everywhere — and we would be looking at the same thing together that way, you see?”

“Yes,” said Sasha, “it will be nice.”

“I was going to say the sun, but I don’t suppose there will be much sun there, so ...” A cough interrupted her; she coughed dully, shaking, pressing her hand to her mouth.

“Irina!” he cried. “What’s that?”

“Nothing,” she smiled, blinking, catching her breath. “Just a little cold I caught. Those G.P.U. cells weren’t heated too well.”

A lantern swam past the window. Then there was nothing but the silent snowflakes splattering against the glass, but they sat, frozen, staring at the window.

Irina whispered: “I think we’re approaching.”

Sasha sat up, erect, his face the color of brass, darker than his hair, and said, his voice changed, firm: “If they let us write to each other, Irina, will you ... every day?”

“Of course,” she answered gaily.

“Will you ... draw things in your letters, too?”

“With pleasure.... Here,” she picked a small splinter of coal from the window ledge, “here, I’ll draw something for you, right now.”

With a few strokes, swift and sure as a surgeon’s scalpel, she sketched a face on the back of her seat, an imp’s face that grinned at them with a wide, crescent mouth, with eyebrows flung up, with one eye winking mischievously, a silly, infectious, irresistible grin that one could not face without grinning in answer.

“Here,” said Irina, “he’ll keep you company after ... after the station....”

Sasha smiled, answering the imp’s smile. And suddenly throwing his head back, clenching his fists, he cried, so that the student by the window shuddered and looked at him: “Why do they talk of honor, and ideals, and duty to one’s country? Why do they teach us ...”

“Darling, not so loud! Don’t think useless thoughts. There are so many useless thoughts in the world!”

At the station, another train was waiting on a parallel track. Guards with bayonets escorted some of the prisoners out. Sasha held Irina, and her bones creaked in his huge arms, and he kissed her lips, her chin, her hair, her neck, and he made a sound that was not quite a moan and not quite a beast’s growl. He whispered hoarsely, furiously, into her scarf, blushing, choking, words he had always been reluctant to utter: “I ... I ... I love you....”

A guard touched her elbow; she tore herself away from Sasha and followed the guard down the aisle. At the door, Sasha pushed the guard aside, savagely, insanely, and seized Irina again, and held her, not kissing her, looking at her stupidly, his long hands crushing the body of the wife he had never possessed.

The guard tore her away from him and pushed her out through the door. She leaned back for a second, for a last look at Sasha. She grinned at him, the homely, silly grin of her imp, her nose wrinkled, one eye winking mischievously. Then the door closed.

The two trains started moving at once. Pressed tightly to the glass pane, Sasha could see the black outline of Irina’s head in the yellow square of a window in the car on the next track. The two trains rolled together, iron mallets striking faster and faster under the floor, the glow of the station swimming slowly back over the dark floor of the car that Sasha was watching. Then the grayish patch of snow between them grew wider. He could still touch the other train with his outstretched arm if the window were open, he thought; then he could still touch it if he were to fling his whole body straight to the other train; then he could reach it no longer, even were he to leap out. He tore his eyes from that other window and watched the white stretch that was growing between them, his fingers on the glass, as if he wanted to seize that white stretch and hold it, and pull with his whole strength, and stop it. The tracks were flying farther and farther apart. At the level of his eyes he could now see the bluish, steely gleams of wheels whirling down narrow bands in the snow. Then he did not look at the snow any longer. His glance clung to the tiny yellow square with a black dot that was a human figure, far away. And as the yellow square shrank swiftly, his eyes would not let it go, and he felt his glance being pulled, stretched, with a pain as excruciating as a wrenched nerve. Across an endless waste of snow, two long caterpillars crawled apart; two thin, silvery threads preceded each; the threads led, disappearing, into a black void. Sasha lost sight of the window; but he could still see a string of yellow spots that still looked square, and above them something black moving against the sky, that looked like car roofs. Then there was only a string of yellow beads, dropping into a black well. Then, there was only the dusty glass pane with patent leather pasted behind it, and he was not sure whether he still saw a string of sparks somewhere or whether it was something burned into his unblinking, dilated eyes.

Then there was only the imp left, on the back of the empty seat before him, grinning with a wide, crescent mouth, one eye winking.

IX

COMRADE VICTOR DUNAEV, ONE OF OUR YOUNGEST and most brilliant engineers, has been assigned to a job on the Volkhovstroy, the great hydroelectric project of the Soviet Union. It is a responsible post, never held previously by one of his years.

The clipping from Pravda lay in Victor’s glistening new brief case, along with a similar one from the Krasnaya Gazeta, and, folded carefully between them, a clipping from the Moscow Izvestia, even though it was only one line about “Comrade V. Dunaev.”

Victor carried the brief case when he left for the construction site on Lake Volkhov, a few hours ride from Petrograd. A delegation from his Party Club came to see him off at the station. He made a short, effective speech about the future of proletarian construction, from the platform of the car, and forgot to kiss Marisha when the train started moving. The speech was reproduced in the Club’s Wall Newspaper on the following day.

Marisha had to remain in Petrograd; she had her course at the Rabfac to finish and her social activities; she had suggested timidly that she would be willing to give them up and accompany Victor; but he had insisted on her remaining in the city. “My dear, we must not forget,” he had told her, “that our social duties come first, above all personal considerations.”

He had promised to come home whenever he was back in the city. She saw him once, unexpectedly, at a Party meeting. He explained hurriedly that he could not come home with her, for he had to take the midnight train back to the construction site. She said nothing, even though she knew that there was no midnight train.

She had developed a tendency to be too silent. At the Komsomol meetings, she made her reports in a strident, indifferent voice. When caught off guard, she sat staring vacantly ahead, her eyes puzzled.

She was left alone in the big, empty rooms of the Dunaev apartment. Victor had talked intimately to a few influential officials, and no tenants had been ordered to occupy their vacant rooms. But the silence of the apartment frightened Marisha, so she spent her evenings with her family, in her old room, next to Kira’s.

When Marisha appeared, her mother sighed and muttered some complaint about the rations at the co-operative, and bent silently over her mending. Her father said: “Good evening,” and gave no further sign of noticing her presence. Her little brother said: “You here again?” She had nothing to say. She sat in a corner behind the grand piano, reading a book until late at night; then she said: “Guess I’ll be going,” and went home.

One evening, she saw Kira crossing the room hurriedly on her way out. Marisha leaped to her feet, smiling eagerly, hopefully, although she did not know why, nor what she hoped for, nor whether she had anything to say to Kira. She made a timid step forward and stopped: Kira had not noticed her and had gone out. Marisha sat down slowly, still smiling vacantly.

Snow had come early. It grew by Petrograd’s sidewalks in craggy mountain ranges, veined with thin, black threads of soot, spotted with brown clods and cigarette stubs and greenish, fading rags of newspapers. But under the walls of the houses, snow grew slowly, undisturbed, soft, white, billowing, pure as cotton, rising to the top panes of basement windows.

Above the streets, window sills hung as white, overloaded shelves. Cornices sparkled, trimmed with the glass lace of long icicles. Into an icy, summer-blue sky little billows of pink smoke rose slowly, melting like petals of apple blossoms.

High on the roofs, snow gathered into menacing white walls behind iron railings. Men in heavy mittens swung shovels high over the city and hurled huge, frozen white clods, as rocks, down to the pavements below; they crashed with a dull thud and a thin white cloud. Sleighs whirled sharply to avoid them; hungry sparrows, their feathers fluffed, scattered from under the muffled, thumping hoofs.

On street corners, huge cauldrons stood encased in boxes of unpainted boards. Men with shovels swung the snow up into the cauldrons, and narrow streams of dirty water gurgled from under the furnaces, running by the curb, long black threads cutting white streets.

At night, the furnaces blazed open in the darkness, little purplish-orange fires low over the ground, and ragged men slipped out of the night, bending to extend frozen hands into the red glow.

Kira walked soundlessly through the palace garden. A narrow track of footprints, half-buried under a fresh white powder, led through the deep snow to the pavilion; Andrei’s footprints, she knew; few visitors ever crossed that garden. Tree trunks stood bare, black and dead like telegraph poles. The palace windows were dark; but, far at the end of the garden, showing through the stiff, naked branches, a bright yellow square hung in the darkness and a little patch of snow was golden-pink under Andrei’s window.

She rose slowly up the long marble stairway. There was no light; her foot searched uncertainly for every frozen, slippery step. It was colder than in the street outside, the dead, damp, still cold of a mausoleum. Hesitantly, her hand followed the broken marble rail. She could see nothing ahead; it seemed as if the steps would never end.

When she came to a break in the railing, she stopped. She called helplessly, with a little note of laughter in her frightened voice: “Andrei!”

A wedge of light split the darkness above as he flung the door open. “Oh, Kira!” He rushed down to her, laughing apologetically: “I’m so sorry! It’s those broken electric wires.”

He swung her up into his arms and carried her to his room, while she laughed: “I’m sorry, Andrei, I’m getting to be such a helpless coward!”

He carried her to the blazing fireplace. He took off her coat and hat, his fingers wet with snow melting on her fur collar. He made her sit down by the fire, removed her mittens and rubbed her cold fingers between his strong palms; he unfastened her new felt overshoes, and took them off, shaking snow that sizzled on the bright red coals.

Then he turned silently, took a long, narrow box, dropped it in her lap and stood watching her, smiling. She asked: “What is this, Andrei?”

“Something from abroad.”

She tore the paper and opened the box. Her mouth fell open without a sound. The box held a nightgown of black chiffon, so transparent that she saw the flames of the fireplace dancing through its thin black folds, as she held it high in frightened, incredulous fingers. “Andrei ... where did you get that?”

“From a smuggler.”

“Andrei! You — buying from a smuggler?”

“Why not?”

“From an ... illegal speculator?”

“Oh, why not? I wanted it. I knew you’d want it.”

“But there was a time when ...”

“There was. Not now.” Her fingers wrinkled the black chiffon as if they were empty. “Well?” he asked. “Don’t you like it?”

“Oh, Andrei!” she moaned. “Andrei! Do they wear things like that abroad?”

“Evidently.”

“Black underwear? How — oh, how silly and how lovely!”

“That’s what they do abroad. They’re not afraid of doing silly things that are lovely. They consider it reason enough to do things because they’re lovely.”

She laughed: “Andrei, they’d throw you out of the Party if they heard you say that.”

“Kira, would you like to go abroad?”

The black nightgown fell to the floor. He smiled calmly, bending to pick it up: “I’m sorry. Did I frighten you, Kira?”

“What ... what did you say?”

“Listen!” He was kneeling suddenly by her side, his arms around her, his eyes intent with a reckless eagerness she had never seen in them before. “It’s an idea I’ve had for some time ... at first, I thought it was insane, but it keeps coming back to me.... Kira, we could ... You understand? Abroad ... forever....”

“But, Andrei ...”

“It can be done. I could still manage to be sent there, get an assignment, some secret mission for the G.P.U. I’d get you a passport to go as my secretary. Once across the border — we’d drop the assignment, and our Red passports, and our names. We’d run away so far they’d never find us.”

“Andrei, do you know what you’re saying?”

“Yes. Only I don’t know what I’d do there. I don’t know — yet. I don’t dare to think about it, when I’m alone. But I can think of it, I can talk of it when you’re here with me. I want to escape before I see too much of what I see around us. To break with all of it at once. It would be like starting again, from the beginning, from a total void. But I’d have you. The rest doesn’t matter. I’d grow to understand what I’m just beginning to learn from you now.”

“Andrei,” she stammered, “you, who were the best your Party had to offer the world ...”

“Well, say it. Say I’m a traitor. Maybe I am. And maybe I’ve just stopped being one. Maybe I’ve been a traitor all these years — to something greater than what the Party ever offered the world. I don’t know. I don’t care. I feel as if I were naked, naked and empty and clear. Because, you see, I feel certain of nothing in that involved mess they call existence, of nothing but you.” He noticed the look in her eyes and asked softly: “What’s the matter, Kira? Have I said anything to frighten you?”

She whispered without looking at him: “No, Andrei.”

“It’s only what I said once — about my highest reverence — remember?”

“Yes ...”

“Kira, will you marry me?”

Her hands fell limply. She looked at him, silently, her eyes wide and pleading.

“Kira, dearest, don’t you see what we’re doing? Why do we have to hide and lie? Why do I have to live in this agony of counting hours, days, weeks between out meetings. Why have I no right to call you in those hours when I think I’ll go insane if I don’t see you? Why do I have to keep silent? Why can’t I tell them all, tell men like Leo Kovalensky, that you’re mine, that you’re my ... my wife?”

She did not look frightened any longer; the name he had pronounced had given her courage, her greatest, coldest battlefield courage. She said: “Andrei, I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Would you do something for me, if I asked you very urgently?”

“Anything.”

“Don’t ask me why.”

“All right.”

“And I can’t go abroad. But if you want to go alone ...”

“Let’s forget it, Kira. I won’t ask any questions. But as for my going alone — don’t you think you shouldn’t say that?”

She laughed, jumping up: “Yes, let’s forget it. Let’s have our own bit of Europe right here. I’m going to try your gift on. Turn around and don’t look.”

He obeyed. When he turned again, she was standing at the fireplace, her arms crossed behind her head, fire flickering behind the black silhouette of her body, through a thin, black mist.

He was bending her backward, so that the locks of her hair, tumbling down, looked red in the glow of the fire; he was whispering: “Kira ... I wasn’t complaining tonight ... I’m happy ... happy that I have nothing left but you....”

She moaned: “Andrei, don’t say it! Please, please, don’t say it!”

He did not say it again. But his eyes, his arms, the body she felt against her body, cried to her without sound: “I have nothing left but you ... nothing ... but you....”

She came home long after midnight. Her room was dark, empty. She sat wearily down on the bed, to wait for Leo. She fell asleep, exhausted, her hair spilled over the foot of the bed, her body huddled in her crumpled red dress.

The telephone awakened her; it was ringing fiercely, insistently. She jumped up. It was daylight. The lamp was still burning on the table; she was alone.

She staggered to the telephone, her eyes closing heavily, her eyelids leaden. “Allo?” she muttered, leaning against the wall, her eyes closed.

“Is that you, Kira Alexandrovna?” an unctuous masculine voice asked, drawing vowels meticulously, with an anxious note in the pleasant inflection.

“Yes,” said Kira. “Who ...”

“It’s Karp Morozov speaking, Kira Alexandrovna. Kira Alexandrovna, soul of mine, can you come over and take that ... that Lev Sergeievitch home? Really, he shouldn’t be seen at my house so often. It seems there was a party and ...”

“I’ll be right over,” said Kira, her eyes open wide, dropping the receiver.

She dressed hurriedly. She could not fasten her coat; her fingers would not slip the buttons through the buttonholes: her fingers were trembling.

It was Morozov who opened the door when she arrived. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and a vest was fastened too tightly, pulled in taut little wrinkles, across his broad stomach. He bowed low, like a peasant: “Ah, Kira Alexandrovna, soul of mine, how are we today? Sorry I had to trouble you, but ... Come right in, come right in.”

The wide, white-paneled lobby smelled of lilac and mothballs. Behind a half-open door, she heard Leo laughing, a gay, ringing, carefree laughter.

She walked straight into the dining room, without waiting for Morozov’s invitation. In the dining room, a table was set for three. Antonina Pavlovna held a teacup, her little finger crooked delicately over its handle; she wore an Oriental kimono; powder was caked in white patches on her nose; lipstick was smeared in a blot between her nose and chin; her eyes seemed very small without make-up, puffed and weary. Leo sat at the table in his black trousers and dress shirt, his collar thrown open, his tie loose, his hair disheveled. He was laughing sonorously, trying to balance an egg on the edge of a knife.

He raised his head and looked at Kira, astonished. His face was fresh, young, radiant as on an early spring morning, a face that nothing, it seemed, could mar or alter. “Kira! What are you doing here?”

“Kira Alexandrovna just happened to ...” Morozov began timidly, but Kira interrupted bluntly:

“He called me.”

“Why, you ...” Leo whirled on Morozov, his face turned into a vicious snarl; then he shook his head and laughed again, as swiftly and suddenly: “Oh, hell, that’s a good one! So they all think that I have a wet-nurse to watch me!”

“Lev Sergeievitch, soul of mine, I didn’t mean to ...”

“Shut up!” Leo ordered and turned to Kira. “Well, since you’re here, take your coat off and sit down and have some breakfast. Tonia, see if you have another couple of eggs.”

“We’re going home, Leo,” Kira said quietly.

He looked at her and shrugged: “If you insist ...” and rose slowly.

Morozov picked up his unfinished cup of tea; he poured it into his saucer and held the saucer on the tips of his fingers and drank, sucking loudly. He said, looking at Kira, then at Leo, hesitantly, over the edge of the saucer: “I ... you see ... it was like this: I called Kira Alexandrovna because I was afraid that you ... you weren’t well, Lev Sergeievitch, and you ...”

“... were drunk,” Leo finished for him.

“Oh, no, but ...”

“I was. Yesterday. But not this morning. You had no business ...”

“It was just a little party, Kira Alexandrovna,” Antonina Pavlovna interrupted soothingly. “I suppose we did stay a little too late, and ...”

“It was five o’clock when you crawled into bed,” Morozov growled. “I know, because you bumped into my bed and upset the water pitcher.”

“Well, Leo brought me home,” Antonina Pavlovna continued, ignoring him, “and I presume he must have been a little tired....”

“A little ...” Morozov began.

“... drunk,” Leo finished for him, shrugging.

“Plenty drunk, if you ask me.” Morozov’s freckles disappeared in a red flush of anger. “Just so drunk that I get up this morning and find him sprawled on the davenport in the lobby, full dress and all, and you couldn’t have awakened him with an earthquake.”

“Well,” Leo asked indifferently, “what of it?”

“It was a grand party,” said Antonina Pavlovna. “And how Leo can spend money! It was thrilling to watch. Really, Leo darling, you were too reckless, though.”

“What did I do? I don’t remember.”

“Well, I didn’t mind it when you lost so much on the roulette, and it was cute when you paid them ten rubles for every cheap glass you broke, but really you didn’t have to give the waiters hundred-ruble tips.”

“Why not? Let them see the difference between a gentleman and the Red trash of today.”

“Yes, but you didn’t have to pay the orchestra fifty rubles to shut up every time they played something you didn’t like. And then, when you chose the prettiest girl in the crowd, whom you’d never seen before, and you offered her any price she named to undress before the guests, and you stuck those hundreds down her décolleté ...”

“Well,” Leo shrugged, “she had a beautiful body.”

“Let’s go, Leo,” said Kira.

“Wait a minute, Lev Sergeievitch,” Morozov said slowly, putting his saucer down. “Just where did you get all that money?”

“I don’t know,” said Leo. “Tonia gave it to me.”

“Antonina, where did you ...”

“Oh?” Antonina Pavlovna raised her eyebrows and looked bored. “I took that package you had under the waste basket.”

“Tonia!” Morozov roared, jumping up, so that the dishes rattled on the table. “You didn’t take that!”

“Certainly I took it,” Antonina Pavlovna tilted her chin defiantly. “And I’m not accustomed to being reproached about money. I took it and that’s that, so what are you going to do about it?”

“My God! Oh, my God! Oh, my Lord in Heaven!” Morozov grasped his head and nodded, rocking like a toy with a broken spring. “What are we going to do? That was the money we owe Syerov. It was due yesterday. And we haven’t got another ruble on hand ... and Syerov ... well, if I don’t deliver it today, he’ll kill me.... What am I going to do? ... He won’t be kept waiting and ...”

“Oh, he won’t, eh?” Leo chuckled coldly. “Well, he’ll wait and he’ll like it. Stop whining like a mutt. What are you afraid of? He can do nothing to us and he knows it.”

“I’m surprised at you, Lev Sergeievitch,” Morozov growled, his freckles drowned in red. “You get your fair share, don’t you? Do you think it was honorable to take ...”

“Honorable?” Leo laughed resonantly, his gayest, lightest, most insulting laughter. “Are you speaking to me? My dear friend, I’ve acquired the great privilege of not having to worry about that word at all. Not at all. In fact, if you find something particularly dishonorable — you may be sure I’ll do it. The lower — the better. I wish you a good day.... Come on, Kira.” He looked around uncertainly: “Where the hell’s my hat?”

“Don’t you remember, Leo?” Antonina Pavlovna reminded him gently. “You lost it on the way home.”

“That’s right, I did. Well, I’ll buy another one. Buy three of them. So long.”

Kira called a sleigh and they rode home in silence.

When they were alone in their room, Leo said brusquely: “I won’t have any criticism from you or anybody else. And you, particularly, have no complaints to make. I haven’t slept with any other woman, if that’s what you’re worried about, and that’s all you have to know.”

“I wasn’t worried, Leo. I have no complaints to make and no criticism. But I want to speak to you. Will you listen?”

He said: “Sure,” indifferently, and sat down.

She knelt before him and slipped her arms around him and shook her hair back, her eyes wide, intent, her voice tense with the calm of a last effort: “Leo, I can’t reproach you. I can’t blame you. I know what you’re doing. I know why you’re doing it. But listen: it’s not too late; they haven’t caught you; you still have time. Let’s make an effort, a last one: let’s save all we can and apply for a foreign passport. Let’s run to the point of the earth that’s the farthest from this damned country.”

He looked into her flaming eyes with eyes that were like mirrors which could not reflect a flame any longer. “Why bother?” he asked.

“Leo, I know what you’ll say. You have no desire to live. You don’t care any more. But listen: do it without desire. Even if you don’t believe you’ll ever care again. Just postpone your final judgment on yourself; postpone it till you get there. When you’re free in a human country again — then see if you still want to live.”

“You little fool! Do you think they give foreign passports to men with my record?”

“Leo, we have to try. We can’t give up. We can’t go on for one minute without that hope ahead of us. Leo, it can’t get you! I won’t let it get you!”

“Who? The G.P.U.? How are you going to stop it?”

“No! Not the G.P.U. Forget the G.P.U. There’s something worse, much worse. It got Victor. It got Andrei. It got Mother. It won’t get you.”

“What do you mean, it got Victor? Are you comparing me to that bootlicking rat, that ...”

“Leo, the bootlicking and all those things — that’s nothing. There’s something much worse that it’s done to Victor, underneath, deeper, more final — and the bootlicking, it’s only a consequence. It does that. It kills something. Have you ever seen plants grown without sunlight, without air? I won’t let it do that to you. Let it take a hundred and fifty million living creatures. But not you, Leo! Not you, my highest reverence ...”

“What an exaggerated expression! Where did you get that?”

She stared at him, repeating: “Where did I ...”

“Really, Kira, sometimes I wonder why you’ve never outgrown that tendency to be so serious about everything. Nothing is getting me. Nothing is doing anything to me. I’m doing what I please, which is more than you can say about anyone else these days.”

“Leo, listen! There’s something I want to do — to try. We have a lot of things to untangle, you and I both. And it’s not easy. Let’s try to slash it all off, at once.”

“By doing what?”

“Leo, let’s get married.”

“Huh?” He stared at her incredulously.

She repeated: “Let’s get married.”

He threw his head back and laughed. He laughed resonantly, a clear, light, icy laughter, as he had laughed at Andrei Taganov, as he had laughed at Morozov. “What’s this, Kira? The make-an-honest-woman-of-you nonsense?”

“No, it’s not that.”

“Rather late for the two of us, isn’t it?”

“Why not, Leo?”

“What for? Do we need it?”

“No.”

“Then why do it?”

“I don’t know. But I’m asking it.”

“That’s not reason enough to do something senseless. I’m not in a mood to become a respectable husband. If you’re afraid of losing me — no scrap of paper, scribbled by a Red clerk, is going to hold me.”

“I’m not afraid of losing you. I’m afraid that you will lose yourself.”

“But a couple of rubles at the Zags and the Upravdom’s blessing will save my soul, is that it?”

“Leo, I have no reasons to offer. But I’m asking it.”

“Are you delivering an ultimatum?”

She said softly, with a quiet smile of surrender and resignation: “No.”

“Then we’ll forget about it.”

“Yes, Leo.”

He slipped his hands under her armpits and pulled her up into his arms, and said wearily: “You crazy, hysterical child! You drive yourself into a fit over some weird fears. Now forget about it. We’ll save every ruble from now on, if that’s what you want. You can put it away for a trip to Monte Carlo or San Francisco or the planet Jupiter. And we won’t talk about it again. All right?”

He was smiling, his arrogant smile on a face that remained incredibly beautiful, a face that was like a drug to her, inexplicable, unconditional, consummate like music. She buried her head on his shoulder, repeating helplessly, hopelessly, a name as a drug: “Leo ... Leo ... Leo ...”

X

PAVEL SYEROV HAD A DRINK BEFORE HE came to his office. He had another drink in the afternoon. He had telephoned Morozov and a voice he knew to be Morozov’s had told him that the Citizen Morozov was not at home. He paced up and down his office and smashed an inkstand. He found a misspelled word in a letter he had dictated, and threw the letter, crumpled into a twisted ball, at his secretary’s face. He telephoned Morozov and got no answer. A woman telephoned him and her soft, lisping voice said sweetly, insistently: “But, Pavlusha darling, you promised me that bracelet!” A speculator brought a bracelet tied in the corner of a dirty handkerchief, and refused to leave it without the full amount in cash. Syerov telephoned Morozov at the Food Trust; a secretary demanded to know who was calling; Syerov slammed the receiver down without answering. He roared at a ragged applicant for a job that he would turn him over to the G.P.U. and ordered his secretary to throw out all those waiting to see him. He left the office an hour earlier than usual and slammed the door behind him.

He walked past Morozov’s house on his way home and hesitated, but saw a militia-man on the corner and did not enter.

At dinner — which had been sent from a communal kitchen two blocks away, and was cold, with grease floating over the cabbage soup — Comrade Sonia said: “Really, Pavel, I’ve got to have a fur coat. I can’t allow myself to catch a cold — you know — for the child’s sake. And no rabbit fur, either. I know you can afford it. Oh, I’m not saying anything about anyone’s little activities, but I’m just keeping my eyes open.”

He threw his napkin into the soup and left the table without eating.

He called Morozov’s house and let the telephone ring for five minutes. There was no answer. He sat on the bed and emptied a bottle of vodka. Comrade Sonia left for a meeting of the Teachers’ Council of an Evening School for Illiterate Women House Workers. He emptied a second bottle.

Then he rose resolutely, swaying a little, pulled his belt tight across his fur jacket and went to Morozov’s house.

He rang three times. There was no answer. He kept his finger on the bell button, leaning indifferently against the wall. He heard no sound behind the door, but he heard steps rising up the stairs and he flung himself into the darkest corner of the landing. The steps died on the floor below and he heard a door opening and closing. He could not let himself be seen waiting there, he remembered dimly. He reached for his notebook and wrote, pressing the notebook to the wall, in the light of a street lamp outside:

Morozov, you Goddamn bastard!

If you don’t come across with what’s due me before tomorrow morning, you’ll eat breakfast at the G.P.U., and you know what that means.

Affectionately, Pavel Syerov.

He folded the note and slipped it under the door.

Fifteen minutes later, Morozov stepped noiselessly out of his bathroom and tiptoed to the lobby. He listened nervously, but heard no sound on the stair-landing. Then he noticed the faint blur of white in the darkness, on the floor.

He picked up the note and read it, bending under the dining-room lamp. His face looked gray.

The telephone rang. He shuddered, frozen to the spot, as if the eyes somewhere behind that ringing bell could see him with the note in his hand. He crammed the note deep into his pocket and answered the telephone, trembling.

It was an old aunt of his and she sniffled into the receiver, asking to borrow some money. He called her an old bitch and hung up.

Through the open bedroom door, Antonina Pavlovna, sitting at her dressing table, brushing her hair, called out in a piercing voice, objecting to the use of such language. He whirled upon her ferociously: “If it weren’t for you and that damn lover of yours ...”

Antonina Pavlovna shrieked: “He’s not my lover — yet! If he were, do you think I’d be squatting around a sloppy old fool like you?”

They had a quarrel.

Morozov forgot about the note in his pocket.

The European roof garden had a ceiling of glass panes; it looked like a black void staring down, crushing those below more implacably than a steel vault. There were lights; yellow lights that looked dimmed in an oppressive haze which was cigarette smoke, or heat, or the black abyss above. There were white tables and yellow glints in the silverware.

Men sat at the tables. Yellow sparks flashed in their diamond studs and in the beads of moisture on their red, flushed faces. They ate; they bent eagerly over their plates; they chewed hurriedly, incredulously; they were not out on a carefree evening in a gay night spot; they were eating.

In a corner, a yellowish bald head bent over a red steak on a white plate; the man cut the steak, smacking his fleshy red lips. Across the table, a red-headed girl of fifteen ate hastily, her head drawn into her shoulders; when she raised her head, she blushed from the tip of her short, freckled nose to her white, freckled neck, and her mouth was twisted as if she were going to scream.

A fierce jet of smoke swayed by a dark window pane; a thin individual, with a long face that betrayed too closely its future appearance as a skull, rocked monotonously on the back legs of his chair, and smoked without interruption, holding a cigarette in long, yellow fingers, spouting smoke out of wide nostrils frozen in a sardonic, unhealthy grin.

Women moved among the tables, with an awkward, embarrassed insolence. A head of soft, golden waves nodded unsteadily under a light, wide eyes in deep blue rings, a young mouth open in a vicious, sneering smile. In the middle of the room, a gaunt, dark woman with knobs on her shoulders, holes under her collar-bones and a skin the color of muddy coffee, was laughing too loudly, opening painted lips like a gash over strong white teeth and very red gums.

The orchestra played “John Gray.” It flung brief, blunt notes out into space, as if tearing them off the strings before they were ripe, hiding the gap of an uncapturable gaiety under a convulsive rhythm.

Waiters glided soundlessly through the crowd and bent over the tables, obsequious and exaggerated, and their flabby jowls conveyed expressions of respect, and mockery, and pity for those guilty, awkward ones who made such an effort to be gay.

Morozov did remember that he had to raise money before morning. He came to the European roof garden, alone. He sat at three different tables, smoked four different cigars and whispered confidentially into five different ears that belonged to corpulent men who did not seem to be in a hurry. At the end of two hours, he had the money in his wallet.

He mopped his forehead with relief, sat alone at a table in a dark corner and ordered cognac.

Stepan Timoshenko leaned so far across a white table cloth that he seemed to be lying on, rather than sitting at, the table. His head was propped on his elbow, his fingers on the nape of his broad neck; he had a glass in his other hand. When the glass was empty, he held it uncertainly in the air, wondering how to refill it with one hand; he solved the problem by dropping the glass with a sonorous crash and lifting the bottle to his lips. The maitre d’hotel looked at him nervously, sidewise, frowning; he frowned at the jacket with the rabbit fur collar, at the crumpled sailor cap sliding over one ear, at the muddy shoes flung out onto the satin train of a woman at the next table. But the maitre d’hotel had to be cautious; Stepan Timoshenko had been there before; everyone knew that he was a Party member.

A waiter slid unobtrusively up to his table and gathered the broken glass into a dust-pan. Another waiter brought a sparkling clean glass and slipped his fingers gently over Timoshenko’s bottle, whispering: “May I help you, citizen?”

“Go to hell!” said Timoshenko and pushed the glass across the table with the back of his hand. The glass vacillated on the edge and crashed down. “I’ll do as I please!” Timoshenko roared, and heads turned to look at him. “I’ll drink out of a bottle if I please. I’ll drink out of two bottles!”

“But, citizen ...”

“Want me to show you how?” Timoshenko asked, his eyes gleaming ominously.

“No, indeed, citizen,” the waiter said hastily.

“Go to hell,” said Timoshenko with soft persuasion. “I don’t like your snoot. I don’t like any of the snoots around here.” He rose, swaying, roaring: “I don’t like any of the damn snoots around here!”

He staggered among the tables. The maitre d’hotel whispered gently at his elbow: “If you’re not feeling well, citizen ...”

“Out of my way!” bellowed Timoshenko, tripping over a woman’s slippers.

He had almost reached the door, when he stopped suddenly and his face melted into a wide, gentle smile. “Ah,” he said. “A friend of mine. A dear friend of mine!”

He staggered to Morozov, swung a chair high over someone’s head, planted it with a resounding smash at Morozov’s table and sat down.

“I beg your pardon, citizen?” Morozov gasped, rising.

“Sit still, pal,” said Timoshenko and his huge tanned paw pressed Morozov’s shoulder down, like a sledge hammer, so that Morozov fell back on his chair with a thud. “Can’t run away from a friend, Comrade Morozov. We’re friends, you know. Old friends. Well, maybe you don’t know me. Stepan Timoshenko’s the name. Stepan Timoshenko.... Of the Red Baltfleet,” he added as an after-thought.

“Oh,” said Morozov. “Oh.”

“Yep,” said Timoshenko, “an old friend and admirer of yours. And you know what?”

“No,” said Morozov.

“We gotta have a drink together. Like good pals. We gotta have a drink. Waiter!” he roared so loudly that a violinist missed a note of “John Gray.”

“Bring us two bottles!” Timoshenko ordered when a waiter bowed hesitantly over his shoulder. “No! Bring us three bottles!”

“Three bottles of what, citizen?” the waiter asked timidly.

“Of anything,” said Timoshenko. “No! Wait! What’s the most expensive? What is it that the good, fat capitalists guzzle in proper style?”

“Champagne, citizen?”

“Make it champagne and damn quick! Three bottles and two glasses!”

When the waiter brought the champagne, Timoshenko poured it and planted a glass before Morozov. “There!” said Timoshenko with a friendly smile. “Going to drink with me, pal?”

“Yes, co ... comrade,” said Morozov meekly. “Thank you, comrade.”

“Your health, Comrade Morozov!” said Timoshenko, solemnly, raising his glass. “To Comrade Morozov, citizen of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics!”

They clinked their glasses. Morozov glanced around furtively, helplessly, but no help was coming. He drank, the glass trembling at his lips. Then he smiled ingratiatingly: “This was very nice of you, comrade,” he muttered, rising. “And I appreciate it very much, comrade. Now if you don’t mind. I’ve got to be going and ...”

“Sit still,” ordered Timoshenko. He refilled his glass and raised it, leaning back, smiling, but his smile did not seem friendly any longer and his dark eyes were looking at Morozov steadily, sardonically. “To the great Citizen Morozov, the man who beat the revolution!” he said and laughed resonantly, and emptied the glass in one gulp, his head thrown back.

“Comrade ...” Morozov muttered through lips he could barely force open, “comrade ... what do you mean?”

Timoshenko laughed louder and leaned across the table toward Morozov, his elbows crossed, his cap far back on his head, over sticky ringlets of dark hair. The laughter stopped abruptly, as if slashed off. Timoshenko said softly, persuasively, with a smile that frightened Morozov more than the laughter: “Don’t look so scared, Comrade Morozov. You don’t have to be afraid of me. I’m nothing but a beaten wretch, beaten by you, Comrade Morozov, and all I want is to tell you humbly that I know I’m beaten and I hold no grudge. Hell, I hold a profound admiration for you, Comrade Morozov. You’ve taken the greatest revolution the world has ever seen and patched the seat of your pants with it!”

“Comrade,” said Morozov with a blue-lipped determination, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, yes,” said Timoshenko ruefully. “Oh, yes, you do. You know more about it than I do, more than millions of young fools do, that watch us from all over the world with worshipping eyes. You must tell them, Comrade Morozov. You have a lot to tell them.”

“Honestly, comrade, I ...”

“For instance, you know how you made us do it. I don’t. All I know is that we’ve done it. We made a revolution. We had red banners. The banners said that we made it for the world proletariat. We had fools who thought in their doomed hearts that we made it for all those downtrodden ones who suffer on this earth. But you and me, Comrade Morozov, we have a secret. We know, but we won’t tell. Why tell? The world doesn’t want to hear it. We know that the revolution — it was made for you, Comrade Morozov, and hats off to you!”

“Comrade whoever you are, comrade,” Morozov moaned, “what do you want?”

“Just to tell you it’s yours, Comrade Morozov.”

“What?” Morozov asked, wondering if he was going insane.

“The revolution,” said Timoshenko pleasantly. “The revolution. Do you know what a revolution is? I’ll tell you. We killed. We killed men in the streets, and in the cellars, and aboard our ships.... Aboard our ships ... I remember ... There was one boy — an officer — he couldn’t have been more than twenty. He made the sign of the cross — his mother must’ve taught him that. He had blood running out of his mouth. He looked at me. His eyes — they weren’t frightened any more. They were kind of astonished. About something his mother hadn’t taught him. He looked at me. That was the last thing. He looked at me.”

Drops were rolling down Timoshenko’s jowls. He filled a glass and it tottered uncertainly in his hand, trying to find his mouth, and he drank without knowing that he was drinking, his eyes fixed on Morozov’s.

“That’s what we did in the year nineteen-hundred-and-seventeen. Now I’ll tell you what we did it for. We did it so that the Citizen Morozov could get up in the morning and scratch his belly, because the mattress wasn’t soft enough and it made his navel itch. We did it so that he could ride in a big limousine with a down pillow on the seat and a little glass tube for flowers by the window, lilies-of-the-valley, you know. So that he could drink cognac in a place like this. So that he could scramble up, on holidays, to a stand all draped in red bunting and make a speech about the proletariat. We did it, Comrade Morozov, and we take a bow. Don’t glare at me like that, Comrade Morozov, I’m only your humble servant, I’ve done my best for you, and you should reward me with a smile, really, you have a lot to thank me for!”

“Comrade!” Morozov panted. “Let me go!”

“Sit still!” Timoshenko roared. “Pour yourself a glass and drink. Do you hear me? Drink, you bastard! Drink and listen!”

Morozov obeyed; his glass tinkled, shaking, against the bottle.

“You see,” said Timoshenko, as if each word were tearing his throat on its way out, “I don’t mind that we’re beaten. I don’t mind that we’ve taken the greatest of crimes on our shoulders and then let it slip through our fingers. I wouldn’t mind it if we had been beaten by a tall warrior in a steel helmet, a human dragon spitting fire. But we’re beaten by a louse. A big, fat, slow, blond louse. Ever seen lice? The blond ones are the fattest.... It was our own fault. Once, men were ruled with a god’s thunder. Then they were ruled with a sword. Now they’re ruled with a Primus. Once, they were held by reverence. Then they were held by fear. Now they’re held by their stomachs. Men have worn chains on their necks, and on their wrists, and on their ankles. Now they’re enchained by their rectums. Only you don’t hold heroes by their rectums. It was our own fault.”

“Comrade, for God’s sake, comrade, why tell it all to me?”

“We started building a temple. Do we end with a chapel? No! And we don’t even end with an outhouse. We end with a musty kitchen with a second-hand stove! We set fire under a kettle and we brewed and stirred and mixed blood and fire and steel. What are we fishing now out of the brew? A new humanity? Men of granite? Or at least a good and horrible monster? No! Little puny things that wiggle. Little things that can bend both ways, little double-jointed spirits. Little things that don’t even bow humbly to be whipped. No! They take the lash obediently and whip themselves! Ever sat at a social-activity club meeting? Should. Do you good. Learn a lot about the human spirit.”

“Comrade!” Morozov breathed. “What do you want? Is it money you want? I’ll pay. I’ll ...”

Timoshenko laughed so loudly that heads turned and Morozov cringed, trying not to be noticed. “You louse!” Timoshenko roared, laughing. “You fool, near-sighted, demented louse! Who do you think you’re talking to? Comrade Victor Dunaev? Comrade Pavel Syerov? Comrade ...”

“Comrade!” Morozov roared, so that heads turned to him, but he did not care any longer. “You ... you ... you have no right to say that! I have nothing whatever to do with Comrade Syerov! I ...”

“Say,” Timoshenko remarked slowly, “I didn’t say you had. Why the excitement?”

“Well, I thought ... I ... you ...”

“I didn’t say you had,” Timoshenko repeated. “I only said you should have. You and he and Victor Dunaev. And about one million others — with Party cards and stamps affixed. The winners and the conquerors. Those who crawl. That, pal, is the great slogan of the men of the future: those who crawl. Listen, do you know how many millions of eyes are watching us across lands and oceans? They’re not very close and they can’t see very well. They see a big shadow rising. They think it’s a huge beast. They’re too far to see that it’s soft and brownish and fuzzy. You know, fuzzy, a glistening sort of fuzz. They don’t know that it’s made of cockroaches. Little, glossy, brown cockroaches, packed tight, one on the other, into a huge wall. Little cockroaches that keep silent and wiggle their whiskers. But the world is too far to see the whiskers. That’s what’s wrong with the world, Comrade Morozov: they don’t see the whiskers!”

“Comrade! Comrade, what are you talking about?”

“They see a black cloud and they hear thunder. They’ve been told that behind the cloud, blood is running freely, and men fight, and men kill, and men die. Well, what of it? They, those who watch, are not afraid of blood. There’s an honor in blood. But do they know that it’s not blood we’re bathed in, it’s pus? Listen, I’ll give you advice. If you want to keep this land in your tentacles, tell the world that you’re chopping heads off for breakfast and shooting men by the regiment. Let the world think that you’re a huge monster to be feared and respected and fought honorably. But don’t let them know that yours is not an army of heroes, nor even of fiends, but of shriveled bookkeepers with a rupture who’ve learned to be arrogant. Don’t let them know that you’re not to be shot, but to be disinfected. Don’t let them know that you’re not to be fought with cannons, but with carbolic acid!”

Morozov’s napkin was crumpled into a drenched ball in his fist. He wiped his forehead once more. He said, trying to make his voice gentle and soothing, trying to rise imperceptibly: “You’re right, comrade. Those are very fine sentiments. I agree with you absolutely. Now if you’ll allow ...”

“Sit down!” roared Timoshenko. “Sit down and drink a toast. Drink it or I’ll shoot you like a mongrel. I still carry a gun, you know. Here ...” he poured and a pale golden trickle ran down the table cloth to the floor. “Drink to the men who took a red banner and wiped their ass with it!”

Morozov drank.

Then he put his hand in his pocket and took out a handkerchief to mop his forehead. A crumpled piece of paper fell to the floor.

It was the swift, ferocious jerk, with which Morozov plunged down for it, that made Timoshenko’s fist dart out and seize Morozov’s hand. “What’s that, pal?” asked Timoshenko.

Morozov’s foot kicked the paper out of reach and it rolled under an empty table. Morozov said indifferently, little damp beads sparkling under his wide nostrils: “Oh, that? Nothing, comrade. Nothing at all. Just some scrap of waste paper.”

“Oh,” said Timoshenko, watching him with eyes that were alarmingly sober. “Oh, just a scrap of waste paper. Well, we’ll let it lie there. We’ll let the janitor throw it in the waste basket.”

“Yes,” Morozov nodded eagerly, “that’s it. In the waste basket. Very well put, comrade.” He giggled, mopping his forehead. “We’ll let the janitor throw it in the waste basket. Would you like another drink, comrade? The bottle’s empty. The next one’s on me. Waiter! Another bottle of the same.”

“Sure,” said Timoshenko without moving. “I’ll have another drink.”

The waiter brought the bottle. Morozov filled the glasses, leaning solicitously over the table. He said, regaining his voice syllable by syllable: “You know, comrade, I think you misunderstood me, but I don’t blame you. I can see your motives and I sympathize thoroughly. There are so many objectionable — er — shall we say dishonorable? — types these days. One has to be careful. We must get better acquainted, comrade. It’s hard to tell at a glance, you know, and particularly in a place like this. I bet you thought I was a — a speculator, or something. Didn’t you? Very funny, isn’t it?”

“Very,” said Timoshenko. “What are you looking down at, Comrade Morozov?”

“Oh!” Morozov giggled, jerking his head up. “I was just looking at my shoes, comrade. They’re sort of tight, you know. Uncomfortable. Guess it’s because I’m on my feet so much, you know, in the office.”

“Uh-huh,” said Timoshenko. “Shouldn’t neglect your feet. Should take a hot bath when you come home, a pan of hot water with a little vinegar. That’s good for sore feet.”

“Oh, indeed? I’m glad you told me. Yes, indeed, thank you very much. I’ll be sure and try it. First thing when I get home.”

“About time you were getting home, isn’t it, Comrade Morozov?”

“Oh! ... well, I guess ... well, it’s not so late yet and ...”

“I thought you were in a hurry a little while ago.”

“I ... well, no, I can’t say that I’m in any particular hurry, and besides, such a pleasant ...”

“What’s the matter, Comrade Morozov? Anything you don’t want to leave around here?”

“Who, me? I don’t know what that could be, comrade ... comrade ... what did you say your name was, comrade?”

“Timoshenko. Stepan Timoshenko. It isn’t that little scrap of waste paper down there under the table, by any chance?”

“Oh, that? Why, Comrade Timoshenko, I’d forgotten all about that. What would I want with it?”

“I don’t know,” said Timoshenko slowly.

“That’s just it, Comrade Timoshenko, nothing. Nothing at all. Another drink, Comrade Timoshenko?”

“Thanks.”

“Here you are, comrade.”

“Anything wrong under the table, Comrade Morozov?”

“Why no, Comrade Timoshenko. I was just bending to tie my shoe lace. The shoe lace is unfastened.”

“Where?”

“Well, isn’t that funny? It really isn’t unfastened at all. See? And I thought it was. You know how it is, these Soviet ... these shoe laces nowadays. Not solid at all. Not dependable.”

“No,” said Timoshenko, “they tear like twine.”

“Yes,” said Morozov, “just like twine. Just, as you would say, like — like twine.... What are you leaning over for, Comrade Timoshenko? You’re not comfortable. Why don’t you move over here like this, you’ll be more ...”

“No,” said Timoshenko, “I’m just fine here where I am. With a fine view of the table there. I like that table. Nice legs it has. Hasn’t it? Sort of artistic, you know.”

“Quite right, comrade, very artistic. Now on the other hand, comrade, there, on our left, isn’t that a pretty blonde there, by the orchestra? Quite a figure, eh?”

“Yes, indeed, comrade.... It’s nice shoes you have, Comrade Morozov. Patent leather, too. Bet you didn’t get those in a co-operative.”

“No ... that is ... to tell you the truth ... well, you see ...”

“What I like about them is that bulb. Right there, on the toes. Like a bump on someone’s forehead. And shiny, too. Yep, those foreigners sure know how to make shoes.”

“Speaking of the efficiency of production, comrade, take for instance, in the capitalistic countries ... in the ... in the ...”

“Yes, Comrade Morozov, in the capitalistic countries?”

It was Morozov who leaped for the letter. It was Timoshenko who caught his wrist with fingers like talons, and for one brief moment they were on their hands and knees on the floor, and their eyes met silently like those of two beasts in deadly battle. Then Timoshenko’s other hand seized the letter, and he rose slowly, releasing Morozov, and sat down at the table. He was reading the letter, while Morozov was still on his hands and knees, staring up at him with the eyes of a man awaiting the verdict of a court-martial.

Morozov, you Goddamn bastard!

If you don’t come across with what’s due me before tomorrow morning, you’ll eat breakfast at the G.P.U., and you know what that means,

Affectionately, Pavel Syerov.

Morozov was sitting at the table when Timoshenko raised his head from the letter. Timoshenko laughed as Morozov had never heard a man laugh.

Timoshenko rose slowly, laughing. His stomach shook, and his rabbit fur collar, and the sinews of his bare throat. He swayed a little and he held the letter in both hands. Then his laughter died down slowly, smoothly, like a gramophone record unwinding, to a low, coughing chuckle on a single dry note. He slipped the letter into his pocket and turned slowly, his shoulders stooped, his movements suddenly awkward, humble. He shuffled heavily, uncertainly to the door. At the door, the maitre d’hotel glanced at him sidewise. Timoshenko returned the glance; Timoshenko’s glance was gentle.

Morozov sat at the table, one hand frozen in mid-air in an absurd, twisted position, like the hand of a paralytic. He heard Timoshenko’s chuckles dropping down the stairway; monotonous, disjoined chuckles that sounded like hiccoughs, like barks, like sobs.

He jumped up suddenly. “Oh my God!” he moaned. “Oh, my God!”

He ran, forgetting his hat and coat, down the long stairs, out into the snow. In the broad, white, silent street, Timoshenko was nowhere in sight.

Morozov did not send the money to Pavel Syerov. He did not go to his own office at the Food Trust. He sat all the following morning and all of the afternoon at home, in his room, and drank vodka. Whenever he heard the telephone or the door bell ringing, he crouched, his head in his shoulders, and bit his knuckles. Nothing happened.

At dinner time, Antonina Pavlovna brought the evening paper and threw it to him, snapping: “What the hell’s the matter with you today?”

He glanced through the paper. There were news items on the front page:

In the village Vasilkino, in the Kama region, the peasants, goaded by the counter-revolutionary hoarder element, burned the local Club of Karl Marx. The bodies of the Club president and secretary, Party comrades from Moscow, were found in the charred ruins. A G.P.U. squad is on its way to Vasilkino.

In the village Sverskoe, twenty-five peasants were executed last night for the murder of the Village Correspondent, a young comrade from the staff of a Communist Union of Youth newspaper in Samara. The peasants refused to divulge the name of the murderer.

On the last page was a short item:

The body of Stepan Timoshenko, former sailor of the Baltic Fleet, was found early this morning under a bridge, on the ice of Obukhovsky Canal. He had shot himself through the mouth. No papers, save his Party card, were found on the body to explain the reason for his suicide.

Morozov wiped his forehead, as if a noose had been slipped off his throat, and drank two glasses of vodka.

When the telephone rang, he swaggered boldly to take the receiver, and Antonina Pavlovna wondered why he was chuckling.

“Morozov?” a muffled voice whispered over the wire.

“That you, Pavlusha?” Morozov asked. “Listen, pal, I’m awfully sorry, but I have the money and ...”

“Forget the money,” Syerov hissed. “It’s all right. Listen ... did I leave you a note yesterday?”

“Why, yes, but I guess I deserved it and ...”

“Have you destroyed it?”

“Why?”

“Nothing. Only you understand what it could ... Have you destroyed it?”

Morozov looked at the evening paper, grinned and said: “Sure. I have. Forget about it, pal.”

He held the paper in his hand all evening long.

“The fool!” he muttered under his breath, so that Antonina Pavlovna looked at him inquisitively, chin forward. “The damn fool! He lost it. Wandered about all night, God knows where, the drunken fool. He lost it!”

Morozov did not know that Stepan Timoshenko had come home from the European roof garden and sat at a rickety table in his unheated garret and written painstakingly a letter on a piece of brown wrapping paper, in the light of a dying candle in a green bottle; that he had folded the letter carefully and slipped it into an old envelope and slipped another scrap of paper, wrinkled and creased, into the envelope, and written Andrei Taganov’s address on it; that he had sealed the letter and had gone, steadily, unhurriedly, down the creaking stairs into the street.

The letter on the brown wrapping paper said:

Dear friend Andrei,

I promised to say good-bye and here it is. It’s not quite what I promised, but I guess you’ll forgive me. I’m sick of seeing what I see and I can’t stand to see it any longer. To you — as my only legacy — I’m leaving the letter you will find enclosed. It’s a hard legacy, I know. I only hope that you won’t follow me — too soon.

Your friend, Stepan Timoshenko.

XI

PAVEL SYEROV SAT AT THE DESK IN his office, correcting the typewritten copy of his next speech on “Railroads and the Class Struggle.” His secretary stood by the desk, watching anxiously the pencil in his hand. The window of his office opened upon one of the terminal platforms. He raised his head just in time to notice a tall figure in a leather jacket disappearing down the platform. Syerov jerked forward, but the man was gone.

“Hey, did you see that man?” he snapped at the secretary.

“No, Comrade Syerov. Where?”

“Never mind. It doesn’t matter. I just thought it was someone I knew. Wonder what he’s doing around here?”

An hour later, Pavel Syerov left his office, and — walking down the stairs, on his way to the street, chewing sunflower seeds and spitting out their shells — saw the man in the leather jacket again. He had not been mistaken: it was Andrei Taganov.

Pavel Syerov stopped, and his brows moved closer together, and he spit one more shell out of the corner of his mouth. Then he approached Andrei casually and said: “Good evening, Comrade Taganov.”

Andrei answered: “Good evening, Comrade Syerov.”

“Thinking of taking a trip, Andrei?”

“No.”

“Hunting train speculators?”

“No.”

“Been shifted to the G.P.U. transport section?”

“No.”

“Well, I’m glad to see you. A rare person to see, aren’t you? So busy you have no time for old friends any more. Have some sunflower seeds?”

“No, thank you.”

“Don’t have the dirty habit? Don’t dissipate at all, do you? No vices, but one, eh? Well, I’m glad to see you taking an interest in this old station which is my home, so to speak. Been around for an hour or so, haven’t you?”

“Any more questions to ask?”

“Who, me? I wasn’t asking any questions. What would I be questioning you for? I was just being sociable, so to speak. One must be sociable once in a while, if one doesn’t want to be branded as an individualist, you know. Why don’t you drop in to see me while you’re in these parts?”

“I may,” said Andrei slowly. “Good-bye, Comrade Syerov.”

Syerov stood, frowning, an unbroken sunflower seed between his teeth, and watched Andrei descending the stairs.

The clerk wiped his nose with his thumb and forefinger, wiped the linseed oil off the bottle’s neck with his apron, and asked: “That all today, citizen?”

“That’s all,” said Andrei Taganov.

The clerk tore a piece of newspaper and wrapped the bottle, greasy stains spreading on the paper.

“Doing good business?” Andrei asked.

“Rotten,” the clerk answered, shrugging his shoulders in an old blue sweater. “You’re the first customer in three hours, I guess. Glad to hear a human voice. Nothing to do here but sit and scare mice off.”

“That’s too bad. Taking a loss, then?”

“Who, me? I don’t own the joint.”

“Then I guess you’ll lose your job soon. The boss will be coming to do his own clerking.”

“Who? My boss?” The clerk made a hoarse, cackling sound that was laughter, opening a wide hole with two broken, blackened teeth. “Not my boss, he won’t. I’d like to see the elegant Citizen Kovalensky slinging herrings and linseed oil.”

“Well, he won’t be elegant long with such poor business.”

“Maybe he won’t,” said the clerk, “and maybe he will.”

“Maybe,” said Andrei Taganov.

“Fifty kopeks, citizen.”

“Here you are. Good night, citizen.”

Antonina Pavlovna had tickets for the new ballet at the Marinsky Theater. It was a “profunion” show and Morozov had received the tickets at the Food Trust. But Morozov did not care for ballet and he had a school meeting to attend, where he was to make a speech on the “Proletarian Distribution of Food Products,” so he gave the tickets to Antonina Pavlovna. She invited Leo and Kira to accompany her. “Well, of course, it’s supposed to be a revolutionary ballet,” she explained. “The first Red ballet. And, of course, you know my attitude on politics, but then, one should be broad-minded artistically, don’t you think so? At least, it’s an interesting experiment.”

Kira refused the invitation. Leo left with Antonina Pavlovna. Antonina Pavlovna wore a jade green gown embroidered in gold, too tight across her stomach, and carried mother-of-pearl opera glasses on a long gold handle.

Kira had made a date with Andrei. But when she left the tramway and walked through the dark streets to the palace garden, she noticed her feet slowing down of their own will, her body tense, unyielding, fighting her, as if she were walking forward against a strong wind. It was as if her body remembered that which she was trying to forget: the night before, a night such as her first one in the gray and silver room she had shared with Leo for over three years. Her body felt pure and hallowed; her feet were slowing down to retard her progress toward that which seemed a sacrilege because she did desire it and did not wish to desire it tonight.

When she reached the top of the long, dark stairs and Andrei opened the door, she asked: “Andrei, will you do something for me?”

“Before I kiss you?”

“No. But right after. Will you take me to a motion picture tonight?”

He kissed her, his face showing nothing but the ever-incredulous joy of seeing her again, then said: “All right.”

They walked out together, arm in arm, fresh snow squeaking under their feet. The three largest film theaters on Nevsky displayed huge cotton signs with red letters:

THE HIT OF THE SEASON!

NEW MASTERPIECE OF THE SOVIET CINEMA!

“RED WARRIORS”

A gigantic epic of the struggle of red heroes in the civil war!

A SAGA OF THE PROLETARIAT!

A titanic drama of the heroic unknown masses

of Workers and Soldiers!

One theater also bore the sign:

COMRADE LENIN SAID: “OF ALL THE ARTS, THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE FOR RUSSIA IS THE CINEMA!”

The theater entrances blazed in streams of white light. The cashiers watched the passersby wistfully and yawned. No one stopped to look at the display of stills.

“You don’t want to see that,” said Andrei.

“No,” said Kira.

The fourth and smaller theater played a foreign picture. It was an old, unknown picture with no stars, no actors’ names announced; three faded stills were pasted in the show window, presenting a lady with too much make-up and a dress fashionable ten years ago.

“We might as well see that,” said Kira.

The box office was closed.

“Sorry, citizens,” said the usher, “no seats left. All sold out for this show and the next one. The foyer’s jammed with people waiting.”

“Well,” said Kira, as they turned away with resignation, “it may as well be ‘The Red Warriors.’ ”

The foyer of the huge, white-columned “Parisiana” was empty. The picture was on, and no one was allowed to enter in the middle of a show. But the usher bowed eagerly and let them enter.

The theater was dark, cold, and seemed silent under the roar of the orchestra, with the echoing silence of a huge, empty room. A few heads dotted the waste of grayish, empty rows.

On the screen, a mob of ragged gray uniforms ran through mud, waving bayonets. A mob of ragged gray uniforms sat around fires, cooking soup. A long train crawled slowly through endless minutes, open box cars loaded with a mob of ragged gray uniforms. “A MONTH LATER” said a title. A mob of ragged gray uniforms ran through mud, waving bayonets. A sea of arms waved banners. A mob of ragged gray uniforms crawled down trench tops, against a black sky. “THE BATTLE OF ZAVRASHINO” said a title. A mob in patent leather boots shot a mob in bast shoes lined against a wall. “THE BATTLE OF SAMSONOVO” said a title. A mob of ragged gray uniforms ran through mud, waving bayonets. “THREE WEEKS LATER” said a title. A long train crawled into a sunset. “THE PROLETARIAT STAMPED ITS MIGHTY BOOT DOWN THE TREACHEROUS THROAT OF DEPRAVED ARISTOCRATS” said a title. A mob in patent leather boots danced in a gaudy brothel, amid broken bottles and half-naked women who looked at the camera. “BUT THE SPIRIT OF OUR RED WARRIORS FLAMED WITH LOYALTY TO THE PROLETARIAN CAUSE” said a title. A mob of ragged gray uniforms ran through mud, waving bayonets. There was no plot, no hero. “THE AIM OF PROLETARIAN ART,” a poster in the foyer had explained, “IS THE DRAMA AND COLOR OF MASS LIFE.”

In the intermission before the second show, Andrei asked: “Do you want to see the beginning of that?”

“Yes,” said Kira. “It’s still early.”

“I know you don’t like it.”

“I know you don’t, either. It’s funny, Andrei, I had a chance to go to the new ballet at the Marinsky tonight, and I didn’t go because it was revolutionary, and here I am looking at this epic.”

“You had a chance to go with whom?”

“Oh — a friend of mine.”

“Not Leo Kovalensky?”

“Andrei! Don’t you think you’re being presumptuous?”

“Kira, of all your friends he’s the one ...”

“... that you don’t like. I know. Still, don’t you think that you’re mentioning it too often?”

“Kira, you’re not interested in politics, are you?”

“No. Why?”

“You’ve never wanted to sacrifice your life senselessly, to have years torn out of it for no good reason, years of jail or exile? Have you?”

“What are you driving at?”

“Keep away from Leo Kovalensky.”

Her mouth was open and her hand was lifted in the air and she did not move for a long second. Then she asked, and no words had ever been so hard to utter:

“What — do — you — mean — Andrei?”

“You don’t want to be known as the friend of a man who is friendly with the wrong kind of people.”

“What people?”

“Several. Our own Comrade Syerov, for one.”

“But what has Leo ...”

“He owns a certain private food store, doesn’t he?”

“Andrei, are you being the G.P.U. agent with me and ...”

“No, I’m not questioning you. I have nothing to learn from you. I’m just wondering how much you know about his affairs — for your own protection.”

“What ... what affairs?”

“That’s all I can tell you. I shouldn’t have told you even that much. But I want to be sure that you don’t let your name be implicated, by chance, in any way.”

“Implicated — in what?”

“Kira, I’m not a G.P.U. agent — with you or to you.”

The lights went out and the orchestra struck up the “Internationale.”

On the screen, a mob of dusty boots marched down a dry, clotted earth. A huge, gray, twinkling, shivering rectangle of boots hung before them, boots without bodies, thick, cobbled soles, old leather gnarled, warped into creases by the muscles and the sweat inside; the boots were not slow and they were not in a hurry; they were not hoofs and they did not seem to be human feet; they rolled forward, from heels to toes, from heels to toes, like gray tanks waddling, crushing, sweeping all before them, clots of earth crumbling into dust, gray boots, dead, measured, endless, lifeless, inexorable.

Kira whispered through the roar of the “Internationale”: “Andrei, are you working on a new case for the G.P.U.?”

He answered: “No. On a case of my own.”

On the screen, shadows in gray uniforms sat around fires under a black sky. Calloused hands stirred iron kettles; a mouth grinned wide over crooked teeth; a man played a harmonica, rocking from side to side with a lewd grin; a man twirled in a Cossack dance, his feet flashing, his hands clapping in time; a man scratched his beard; a man scratched his neck; a man scratched his head; a man chewed a crust of bread, crumbs rolling into the open collar of his tunic, into a black, hairy chest. They were celebrating a victory.

Kira whispered: “Andrei, do you have something to report to the G.P.U.?”

He answered: “Yes.”

On the screen, a demonstration marched down a city street, celebrating a victory. Banners and faces swam slowly past the camera. They moved as wax figures pulled by invisible wires, young faces in dark kerchiefs, old faces in knitted shawls, faces in soldiers’ caps, faces in leather hats, faces that looked alike, set and humorless, eyes flat as if painted on, lips soft and shapeless, marching without stirring, marching without muscles, with no will but that of the cobblestones pulled forward under their motionless feet, with no energy but that of the red banners as sails in the wind, no fuel but the stuffy warmth of millions of skins, millions of flaccid, doughy muscles, no breath but the smell of patched armpits, of warm, weary, bowed necks, marching, marching, marching in an even, ceaseless movement, a movement that did not seem alive.

Kira jerked her head with a shudder that ran down to her knees and gasped: “Andrei, let’s go!”

He rose swiftly, obediently.

When he motioned to a sleigh driver in the street outside, she said: “No. Let’s walk. Walk. With both feet.”

He took her arm, asking: “What’s the matter, Kira?”

“Nothing,” she walked, listening to the living sound of her heels crunching snow. “I ... I didn’t like the picture.”

“I’m sorry, dear. I don’t blame you. I wish they wouldn’t make those things, for their own sake.”

“Andrei, you wanted to leave it all, to go abroad, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Then why are you starting something ... against someone ... to help the masters you no longer want to serve?”

“I’m going to find out whether they’re still worth serving.”

“What difference would that make to you?”

“A difference on which the rest of my life may depend.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m giving myself a last chance. I have something to put before them. I know what they should do about it. I’m afraid I know also what they’re going to do about it. I’m still a member of the Party. In a very short while, I’ll know whether I’ll remain a member of the Party.”

“You’re making a test, Andrei? At the cost of several lives?”

“At the cost of several lives that should be ended.”

“Andrei!”

He looked at her white face, astonished: “Kira, what’s the matter? You’ve never questioned me about my work. We’ve never discussed it. You know that my work deals with lives — and death, when necessary. It has never frightened you like this. It’s something the two of us must keep silent about.”

“Are you forbidding me to break that silence?”

“Yes. And there’s something I have to tell you. Please listen carefully and don’t answer me, because, you see, I don’t want to know the answer. I want you to keep silent because I don’t want to learn how much you know about the case I’m investigating. I’m afraid I know already that you’re not quite ignorant about it. I’m expecting the highest integrity from the men I’m going to face. Don’t make me face them with less than that on my part.”

She said, trying to be calm, her voice quivering, a voice with a life and a terror of its own which she could not control: “Andrei, I won’t answer. Now listen and don’t question me. Please don’t question me! I have nothing to tell you but this: I’m begging you — you understand — begging you with all there is in me, if I ever meant anything to you, this is the only time I want to claim it, I’m begging you, while it’s still in your hands, to drop this case, Andrei! for one reason only, for me!”

He turned to her and she looked into a face she had never seen before, the implacable face of Comrade Taganov of the G.P.U., a face that could have watched secret executions in dark, secret cellars. He asked slowly: “Kira, what is that man to you?”

The tone of his voice made her realize that she could protect Leo best by remaining silent. She answered, shrugging: “Just a friend. We’ll keep silent, Andrei. It’s late. Will you take me home?”

But when he left her at her parents’ house, she waited only to hear his steps dying around the corner. Then she ran through dark streets to the first taxi she could find and leaped in, ordering: “Marinsky Theater! As fast as you can go!”

In the dim, deserted lobby of the theater, she heard the thunder of the orchestra behind closed doors, a tuneless, violent jumble of sound.

“Can’t go in now, citizen,” said a stern usher.

She slipped a crumpled bill into his hand, whispering: “I have to find someone, comrade.... It’s a matter of life and death ... his mother is dying....”

She slipped noiselessly between blue velvet curtains into a dark, half-empty theater. On the glittering stage a chorus of fragile ballerinas in short, flame-red tulle skirts fluttered, waving thin, powdered arms with gilded chains of papier-mâché, in a “Dance of the Toilers.”

She found Leo and Antonina Pavlovna in comfortable armchairs in an empty row. They jumped up when they saw Kira slipping toward them down the long row of chairs, and someone behind them hissed: “Sit down!”

“Leo!” Kira whispered. “Come on! Right away! Something’s happened!”

“What?”

“Come on! I’ll tell you! Let’s get out of here!”

He followed her up the dark aisle. Antonina Pavlovna waddled hurriedly after them, her chin pointing forward.

In a corner of the empty foyer, Kira whispered: “It’s the G.P.U., Leo, they’re after your store. They know something.”

“What? How did you find out?”

“I just saw Andrei Taganov and he ...”

“You saw Andrei Taganov? Where? I thought you were going to visit your parents.”

“Oh, I met him on the street and ...”

“What street?”

“Leo! Stop that nonsense! Don’t you understand? We have no time to waste!”

“What did he say?”

“He didn’t say much. Just a few hints. He told me to keep away from you if I didn’t want to be arrested. He said you had a private food store, and he mentioned Pavel Syerov. He said he had a report to make to the G.P.U. I think he knows everything.”

“So he told you to keep away from me?”

“Leo! You refuse to ...”

“I refuse to be frightened by some jealous fool!”

“Leo, you don’t know him! He doesn’t joke about G.P.U. matters. And he’s not jealous of you. Why should he be?”

“What department of the G.P.U. is he in?”

“Secret service department.”

“Not the Economic Section, then?”

“No. But he’s doing it on his own.”

“Well, come on. We’ll call Morozov and Pavel Syerov. Let Syerov call his friend of the Economic Section and find out what your Taganov’s doing. Don’t get hysterical. Nothing to be afraid of. Syerov’s friend will take care of it. Come on.”

“Leo,” Antonina Pavlovna panted, running after them, as they hurried to a taxi outside, “Leo, I had nothing to do with the store! If there’s an investigation, remember, I had nothing to do with it! I only carried money to Syerov and I knew nothing about where it came from! Leo, remember!”

An hour later, a sleigh drove noiselessly up to the back entrance of the store that carried the sign “Lev Kovalensky. Food Products.” Two men slipped silently down frozen, unlighted stairs to the basement, where Leo and the clerk were waiting with a dim old lantern. The newcomers made no sound. Leo pointed silently to the sacks and boxes. The men carried them swiftly up the stairs to the sleigh. The sleigh was covered with a large fur blanket. In less than ten minutes the basement was empty.

“Well?” Kira asked anxiously, when Leo came home.

“Go to bed,” said Leo, “and don’t dream of any G.P.U. agents.”

“What did you do?”

“It’s all done. We got rid of everything. It’s on its way out of Red Leningrad this very minute. We had another load coming from Syerov tomorrow night, but we’ve cancelled that. We’ll be running a pure little food store — for a while. Till Syerov checks up on things.”

“Leo, I ...”

“You won’t start any arguments again. I’ve told you once: I’m not going to leave town. That would be the most dangerous, the most suspicious thing to do. And we have nothing to worry about. Syerov’s too strong at the G.P.U. for any ...”

“Leo, you don’t know Andrei Taganov.”

“No, I don’t. But you seem to know him too well.”

“Leo, they can’t bribe him.”

“Maybe not. But they can make him shut up.”

“If you’re not afraid ...”

“Of course I’m not afraid!”

But his face was paler than usual and she noticed his hands, unbuttoning his coat, trembling.

“Leo, please! Listen!” she begged. “Leo, please! I ...”

“Shut up!” said Leo.

XII

THE EXECUTIVE OF THE ECONOMIC SECTION OF the G.P.U. called Andrei Taganov into his office.

The office was in a part of the G.P.U. headquarters’ building which no visitors ever approached and into which few employees were ever admitted. Those who were admitted spoke in low, respectful voices and never felt at ease.

The executive sat at his desk. He wore a military tunic, tight breeches, high boots and a gun on his hip. He had close-cropped hair and a clean-shaved face that betrayed no age. When he smiled, he showed short teeth and very wide, brownish gums. His smile betrayed no mirth, no meaning; one knew it was a smile only because the muscles of his cheeks creased and his gums showed.

He said: “Comrade Taganov, I understand you’ve been conducting some investigations in a case which comes under the jurisdiction of the Economic Section.”

Andrei said: “I have.”

“Who gave you the authority to do it?”

Andrei said: “My Party card.”

The executive smiled, showing his gums, and asked: “What made you begin the investigation?”

“A piece of incriminating evidence.”

“Against a Party member?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you turn it over to us?”

“I wanted to have a complete case to report.”

“Have you?”

“Yes.”

“You intend to report it to the chief of your department?”

“Yes.”

The executive smiled and said: “I suggest that you drop the entire matter.”

Andrei said: “If this is an order, I’ll remind you that you are not my chief. If it is advice, I do not need it.”

The executive looked at him silently, then said: “Strict discipline and a straightforward loyalty are commendable traits, Comrade Taganov. However, as Comrade Lenin said, a Communist must be adaptable to reality. Have you considered the consequences of what you plan to expose?”

“I have.”

“Do you find it advisable to make public a scandal involving a Party member — at this time?”

“That should have been the concern of the Party member involved.”

“Do you know my ... interest in that person?”

“I do.”

“Does the knowledge make any difference in your plans?”

“None.”

“Have you ever thought that I could be of service to you?”

“No. I haven’t.”

“Don’t you think that it is an idea worth considering?”

“No. I don’t.”

“How long have you held your present position, Comrade Taganov?”

“Two years and three months.”

“At the same salary?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you think a promotion desirable?”

“No.”

“You do not believe in a spirit of mutual help and cooperation with your Party comrades?”

“Not above the spirit of the Party.”

“You are devoted to the Party?”

“Yes.”

“Above all things?”

“Yes.”

“How many times have you faced a Party Purge Committee?”

“Three times.”

“Do you know that there is another purge coming?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re going to make your report on that case you’ve investigated — to your chief?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“At four o’clock this afternoon.”

The executive looked at his wristwatch: “Very well. In an hour and a half then.”

“Is that all?”

“That’s all, Comrade Taganov.”

A few days later, Andrei’s chief called him into his office. The chief was a tall, thin man with a pointed blond beard and a gold pince-nez on a high, thin nose. He wore the expensive, blondish-brown suit of a foreign tourist; he had the long, knotty hands of a skeleton and the appearance of an unsuccessful college professor.

“Sit down,” said the chief, and rose, and closed the door.

Andrei sat down.

“Congratulations, Comrade Taganov,” said the chief.

Andrei inclined his head.

“You have done a valuable piece of work and rendered a great service to the Party, Comrade Taganov. You could not have chosen a better time for it. You have put into our hands just the case we needed. With the present difficult economic situation and the dangerous trend of public sentiment, the government has to show the masses who is responsible for their suffering, and show it in a manner that will not be forgotten. The treacherous counter-revolutionary activities of speculators, who deprive our toilers of their hard-earned food rations, must be brought into the full light of proletarian justice. The workers must be reminded that their class enemies are plotting day and night to undermine the only workers’ government in the world. Our toiling masses must be told that they have to bear their temporary hardships patiently and lend their full support to the government which is fighting for their interests against such heavy odds, as the case you’ve discovered will display to the public. This, in substance, was the subject of my conversation with the editor of the Pravda this morning, in regard to the campaign we are starting. We shall make an example of this case. Every newspaper, every club, every public pulpit will be mobilized for the task. The trial of Citizen Kovalensky will be broadcast into every hamlet of the U.S.S.R.”

“Whose trial, comrade?”

“The trial of Citizen Kovalensky. Oh, yes, of course, by the way, that letter of Comrade Syerov which you attached to your report on the case — was that the only copy of it in existence?”

“Yes, comrade.”

“Who has read it besides yourself?”

“No one.”

The chief folded his long, thin hands, the tips of his fingers meeting, and said slowly: “Comrade Taganov, you will forget that you’ve ever read that letter.”

Andrei looked at him silently.

“This is an order from the committee which investigated your report. However, I shall take the time to explain, for I appreciate your efforts in the matter. Do you read the newspapers, Comrade Taganov?”

“Yes, comrade.”

“Do you know what is going on in our villages at the present time?”

“Yes, comrade.”

“Are you aware of the mood in our factories?”

“Yes, comrade.”

“Do you realize the precarious equilibrium of our public opinion?”

“Yes, comrade.”

“In that case, I do not have to explain to you why a Party member’s name must be kept from any connection with a case of counter-revolutionary speculation. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly, comrade.”

“You must be very careful to remember that you know nothing about Comrade Pavel Syerov. Am I understood?”

“Thoroughly, comrade.”

“Citizen Morozov will resign from his position with the Food Trust — by reason of ill health. He will not be brought into the case, for it would throw an unfavorable light on our Food Trust and create a great deal of unnecessary comment. But the real culprit and dominant spirit of the conspiracy, Citizen Kovalensky, will be arrested tonight. Does that meet with your approval, Comrade Taganov?”

“My position does not allow me to approve, comrade. Only to take orders.”

“Very well said, Comrade Taganov. Of course, Citizen Kovalensky is the sole legal, registered owner of that food store, as we’ve checked. He is an aristocrat by birth and the son of a father executed for counter-revolution. He has been arrested before — for an illegal attempt to leave the country. He is a living symbol of the class which our working masses know to be the bitterest enemy of the Soviets. Our working masses, justly angered by lengthy privations, by long hours of waiting in lines at our co-operatives, by lack of the barest necessities, will know who is to blame for their hardships. They will know who strikes deadly blows at the very heart of our economic life. The last descendant of a greedy, exploiting aristocracy will pay the penalty due every member of his class.”

“Yes, comrade. A public trial with headlines in the papers and a radio microphone in the courtroom?”

“Precisely, Comrade Taganov.”

“And what if Citizen Kovalensky talks too much and too near the microphone? What if he mentions names?”

“Oh, nothing to fear, Comrade Taganov. Those gentlemen are easy to handle. He’ll be promised life to say only what he’s told to say. He’ll be expecting a pardon even when he hears his death sentence. One can make promises, you know. One doesn’t always have to keep them.”

“And when he faces the firing squad — there will be no microphone on hand?”

“Precisely.”

“And, of course, it won’t be necessary to mention that he was jobless and starving at the time he entered the employ of those unnamed persons.”

“What’s that, Comrade Taganov?”

“A helpful suggestion, comrade. It will also be important to explain how a penniless aristocrat managed to lay his hands on the very heart of our economic life.”

“Comrade Taganov, you have a remarkable gift for platform oratory. Too remarkable a gift. It is not always an asset to an agent of the G.P.U. You should be careful lest it be appreciated and you find yourself sent to a nice post — in the Turkestan, for instance — where you will have full opportunity to display it. Like Comrade Trotsky, for instance.”

“I have served in the Red Army under Comrade Trotsky.”

“I wouldn’t remember that too often, Comrade Taganov, if I were you.”

“I won’t, comrade. I shall do my best to forget it.”

“At six o’clock tonight, Comrade Taganov, you will report for duty to search Citizen Kovalensky’s apartment for any additional evidence or documents pertaining to this case. And you will arrest Citizen Kovalensky.”

“Yes, comrade.”

“That’s all, Comrade Taganov.”

“Yes, comrade.”

The executive of the Economic Section of the G.P.U. smiled, showing his gums, at Comrade Pavel Syerov and said coldly: “Hereafter, Comrade Syerov, you will confine your literary efforts to matters pertaining to your job on the railroad.”

“Oh, sure, pal,” said Pavel Syerov. “Don’t worry.”

“I’m not the one to worry in this case, I’ll remind you.”

“Oh, hell, I’ve worried till I’m seasick. What do you want? One has only so many hairs to turn gray.”

“But only one head under the hair.”

“What ... what do you mean? You have the letter, haven’t you?”

“Not any more.”

“Where is it?”

“In the furnace.”

“Thanks, pal.”

“You have good reason to be grateful.”

“Oh, sure. Sure, I’m grateful. A good turn deserves another. An eye for an eye ... how does the saying go? I keep my mouth shut about some things and you keep others shut for me about my little sins. Like good pals.”

“It’s not as simple as that, Syerov. For instance, your aristocratic playmate, Citizen Kovalensky, will have to go on trial and ...”

“Hell, do you think that will make me cry? I’ll be only too glad to see that arrogant bum get his white neck twisted.”

“Your health, Comrade Morozov, requires a long rest and a trip to a warmer climate,” said the official. “That is why, in acknowledgment of your resignation, we are giving you this assignment to a place in a House of Rest. You understand?”

“Yes,” said Morozov, mopping his forehead, “I understand.”

“It is a pleasant sanatorium in the Crimea. Restful and quiet. Far from the noise of the cities. It will help your health a great deal. I would suggest that you take full advantage of the privilege for, let us say, six months. I would not advise you to hurry back, Comrade Morozov.”

“No,” said Morozov, “I won’t hurry.”

“And there’s another advice I would like to give you, Comrade Morozov. You are going to hear a great deal, from the newspapers, about the trial of a certain Citizen Kovalensky for counter-revolutionary speculation. It would be wise to let your fellow patients in the sanatorium understand that you know nothing about the case.”

“Of course, comrade. I don’t know a thing about it. Not a thing.”

The official bent toward Morozov and whispered bluntly, confidentially: “And if I were you, I wouldn’t try to pull any wires for Kovalensky, even though he’s going to the firing squad.”

Morozov looked up into the official’s face and drawled, his soft vowels blurring, trailing off into a whine, his wide, vertical nostrils quivering: “Who, me, pull any wires? For him? Why should I, comrade? Why should I? I had nothing to do with him. He owned that store. He alone. You can look up the registration. He alone. He can’t prove I knew anything about ... about anything. He alone. Sole owner. Lev Kovalensky — you can look it up.”

Lavrov’s wife opened the door.

She made a choked sound, like a hiccough, somewhere in her throat, and clamped her hand over her mouth, when she saw Andrei Taganov’s leather jacket and the holster on his hip, and behind him — the steel blades of four bayonets.

Four soldiers entered, following Andrei. The last one slammed the door shut imperiously.

“Lord merciful! Oh, my Lord merciful!” wailed the woman, clasping a faded apron in both hands.

“Keep still!” ordered Andrei. “Where’s Citizen Kovalensky’s room?”

The woman pointed with a shaking finger and kept on pointing, foolishly, persistently, while the soldiers followed Andrei. She stared stupidly at the clothes rack in the lobby, at the old coats that seemed warm and creased to the lines of human bodies, hanging there while three thin, steel blades moved slowly past, and six boots stamped heavily, the floor sounding like a muffled drum. The soldier with the fourth bayonet remained standing at the door.

Lavrov jumped up when he saw them. Andrei crossed the room swiftly, without looking at him. A short, sharp movement of Andrei’s hand, brusque and imperious as a lash, made one of the soldiers remain stationed at the door. The others followed Andrei into Leo’s room.

Leo was alone. He sat in a deep armchair by the lighted fireplace, in his shirt sleeves, reading a book. The book was the first thing to move when the door was flung open; it descended slowly to the arm of the chair and a steady hand closed it. Then, Leo rose unhurriedly, the glow of the fire flickering on the white shirt on his straight shoulders.

He said, smiling, his smile a scornful arc: “Well, Comrade Taganov, didn’t you know that some day we would meet like this?”

Andrei’s face had no expression. It was set and motionless like a passport photograph; as if lines and muscles were hardened into something which had no human meaning, something which was a human face in shape only. He handed to Leo a paper bearing official stamps; he said, in a voice which was a human voice only because it made sounds that were of the human alphabet: “Search warrant, Citizen Kovalensky.”

“Go ahead,” said Leo, bowing sternly, graciously, as if to a guest at a formal reception. “You’re quite welcome.”

Two swift movements of Andrei’s hand sent one soldier to a chest of drawers and the other to the bed. Drawers clattered open; white stacks of underwear fell to the floor, from under huge, dark fists that dug swiftly, expertly and slammed the drawers shut with a bang, one after the other. A white pile grew on the floor, around black boots glistening with melting snow. A quick hand ripped the satin cover off the bed, then the quilt and the sheets; the thrust of a bayonet split the mattress open and two fists disappeared in the cut.

Andrei opened the drawers of a desk. He went through them swiftly, mechanically, his thumb running the pages of books in a quick, fan-shaped whirl, with a swishing rustle like the shuffling of a pack of cards; he threw the books aside, gathering all notes and letters, shoving them into his brief case.

Leo stood alone in the middle of the room. The men took no notice of his presence, as if their actions did not concern him, as if he were only a piece of furniture, the last one to be torn open. He was half-sitting, half-leaning against a table, his two hands on the edge, his shoulders hunched, his long legs sliding forward. The logs creaked in the silence, and things thudded against the floor, and the papers rustled in Andrei’s fingers.

“I’m sorry I can’t oblige you,” said Leo, “by letting you find secret plans to blow up the Kremlin and overthrow the Soviets, Comrade Taganov.”

“Citizen Kovalensky,” said Andrei, as if they had never met before, “you are speaking to a representative of the G.P.U.”

“You didn’t think I had forgotten that, did you?” said Leo.

A soldier stuck a bayonet into a pillow, and little white flakes of down fluttered up like snowdrops. Andrei jerked the door of a cabinet open; the dishes and glasses tinkled, as he piled them swiftly, softly on the carpet.

Leo opened his gold cigarette case and extended it to Andrei.

“No, thank you,” said Andrei.

Leo lighted a cigarette. The match quivered in his fingers for an instant, then grew steady. He sat on the edge of the table, swinging one leg, smoke rising slowly in a thin, blue column.

“The survival,” said Leo, “of the fittest. However, not all philosophers are right. I’ve always wanted to ask them one question: the fittest — for what? ... You should be able to answer it, Comrade Taganov. What are your philosophical convictions? We’ve never had a chance to discuss that — and this would be an appropriate time.”

“I would suggest,” said Andrei, “that you keep silent.”

“And when a representative of the G.P.U. suggests,” said Leo, “it’s a command, isn’t it? I realize that one should know how to respect the grandeur of authority under all circumstances, no matter how trying to the self-respect of those in power.”

One of the soldiers raised his head and made a step toward Leo. A glance from Andrei stopped him. The soldier opened a wardrobe and took Leo’s suits out, one by one, running his hand through the pockets and linings.

Andrei opened another wardrobe.

The wardrobe smelled of a fine French perfume. He saw a woman’s dresses hanging in a row.

“What’s the matter, Comrade Taganov?” asked Leo.

Andrei was holding a red dress.

It was a plain red dress with a patent leather belt, four buttons, a round collar and a huge bow.

Andrei held it spread out in his two hands and looked at it. The red cloth spurted in small puffs between his fingers.

Then his eyes moved, slowly, a glance like a weight grating through space, to the line of clothes in the wardrobe. He saw a black velvet dress he knew, a coat with a fur collar, a white blouse.

He asked: “Whose are these?”

“My mistress’s,” Leo answered, his eyes fixed on Andrei’s face, pronouncing the word with a mocking contempt that suggested the infamy of obscenity.

Andrei’s face had no expression, no human meaning. He looked down at the dress, his lashes like two black crescents on his sunken cheeks. Then he straightened the dress slowly and, cautiously, a little awkwardly, as if it were of breakable glass, hung it back in the wardrobe.

Leo chuckled, his eyes dark, his mouth twisted: “A disappointment, isn’t it, Comrade Taganov?”

Andrei did not answer. He took the dresses out slowly, one by one, and ran his fingers through the pockets, through the soft folds that smelled of a French perfume.

“I say you can’t, citizen!” The guard’s voice roared suddenly behind the door. “You can’t go in now!”

There was the sound of a struggle behind the door, as if an arm had pushed a body aside.

A voice screamed, and it was not a woman’s voice, it was not a female’s voice, it was the ferocious howl of an animal in mortal agony: “Let me in there! Let me in!”

Andrei looked at the door and walked to it slowly and threw it open.

Andrei Taganov and Kira Argounova stood face to face.

He asked slowly, evenly, the syllables falling like measured drops of water: “Citizen Argounova, do you live here?”

She answered, her head high, her eyes holding his, the sound of her voice like his: “Yes.”

She stepped into the room; the soldier closed the door.

Andrei Taganov turned very slowly, his right shoulder drooping, every tendon of his body pulled to the effort of the motion, very cautiously, as if a knife had been thrust between his shoulder blades and he had to move carefully, not to disturb it. His left arm hung unnaturally, bent at the elbow, his fingers half-closed as if holding something they could not spill.

He turned to the soldiers and said: “Search that cabinet — and the boxes in the corner.”

Then he walked back to the open wardrobe; his steps and the logs of the fireplace creaked in the silence.

Kira leaned against the wall, her hat in her hand. The hat slipped out of her fingers and fell to the floor, unnoticed.

“I’m sorry, dearest,” said Leo. “I hoped it would be over before you came back.”

She was not looking at Leo. She was looking at the tall figure in a leather jacket with a holster on his hip.

Andrei walked to her dresser, and opened the drawers, and she saw her underwear in his hands, white batiste nightgowns, lace ruffles crumpled in his steady, unhurried fingers.

“Look through the davenport pillows,” Andrei ordered the soldiers, “and lift that rug.”

Kira stood pressed against the wall, her knees sagging, her hips, arms and shoulder blades holding her upright.

“That will be all,” Andrei ordered the soldiers. He closed the last drawer, evenly, without sound.

He took his brief case from the table and turned to Leo. He said, his mouth opening strangely, his upper lip motionless and only the lower one moving to form the sounds: “Citizen Kovalensky, you’re under arrest.”

Leo shrugged and reached silently for his coat. His mouth was drooping contemptuously, but he noticed that his fingers were trembling. He threw his head up, and flung his words at Andrei: “I’m sure this is the most pleasant duty you’ve ever performed, Comrade Taganov.”

The soldiers picked up their bayonets, kicking aside the things on the cluttered floor.

Leo walked to the mirror and adjusted his tie, his coat, his hair, with the meticulous precision of a man dressing for an important social engagement. His fingers were not trembling any longer. He folded his handkerchief neatly and slipped it into his breast pocket.

Andrei stood waiting.

Leo stopped before Kira on his way out. “Aren’t you going to say good-bye, Kira?” he asked.

He took her in his arms and kissed her. It was a long kiss. Andrei stood waiting.

“I have only one last favor to ask, Kira,” Leo whispered. “I hope you’ll forget me.”

She did not answer.

A soldier threw the door open. Andrei walked out and Leo followed. The soldier closed the door behind them.

XIII

LEO HAD BEEN LOCKED IN a cell at the G.P.U. Andrei had come home. At the gate of the palace garden, a Party comrade, hurrying into the Club, had stopped him.

“You’re giving us a report on the agrarian situation tonight, Comrade Taganov, aren’t you?” he had asked.

“Yes,” Andrei had answered.

“At nine o’clock, isn’t it? We’re all looking forward to it, Comrade Taganov. See you at nine.”

“Yes,” Andrei had answered.

He had walked slowly through the deep snow of the garden, up the long stairs, to his dark room.

A Club window was lighted in the palace and a yellow square fell across the floor. Andrei took off his cap, his leather jacket, his gun. He stood by the fireplace, kicking gray coals with his toe. He threw a log on the coals and struck a match.

He sat on a box by the fire, his hands hanging limply between his knees, his hands and his forehead pink in the darkness.

He heard steps on the landing outside, then a hand knocking sharply. He had not locked the door. He said: “Come in.”

Kira came in. She slammed the door behind her and stood in the archway of his room. He could not see her eyes in the darkness; black shadows swallowed her eyes and forehead; but the red glow fell on her mouth, and her mouth was wide, loose, brutal.

He rose and stood silently, looking at her.

“Well?” she threw at him savagely. “What are you going to do about it?”

He said slowly: “If I were you, I’d get out of here.”

She leaned against the archway, asking: “And if I don’t?”

“Get out of here,” he repeated.

She tore her hat off and flung it aside, she threw her coat off and dropped it to the floor.

“Get out, you — ”

“ — whore?” she finished for him. “Certainly. I just want to be sure you know that that’s what I am.”

He asked: “What do you want? I have nothing to say to you.”

“But I have. And you’ll listen. So you’ve caught me, haven’t you, Comrade Taganov? And you’re going to have your revenge? You came with your soldiers, with a gun on your hip, Comrade Taganov of the G.P.U., and you arrested him? And now you’re going to use all your influence, all your great Party influence, to see that he’s put before the firing squad, aren’t you? Perhaps you’ll even ask for the privilege of giving the order to fire? Go ahead! Have your revenge. And this is mine. I’m not pleading for him. I have nothing to fear any more. But, at least, I can speak. And I’ll speak. I have so much to say to you, to all of you, and I’ve kept silent for so long that it’s going to tear me to pieces! I have nothing to lose. But you have.”

He said: “Don’t you think it’s useless? Why say anything? If you have any excuses to offer ...”

She laughed, a human laughter that did not sound human, that did not sound like laughter: “You fool! I’m proud of what I’ve done! Hear me! I don’t regret it! I’m proud of it! So you think I loved you, don’t you? I loved you, but I was unfaithful to you, on the side, as most women are? Well, then, listen: all you were to me, you and your great love, and your kisses, and your body, all they meant was only a pack of crisp, white, square, ten-ruble bills with a sickle and hammer printed in the corner! Do you know where those bills went? To a tubercular sanatorium in the Crimea. Do you know what they paid for? For the life of a man I loved long before I ever saw you, for the life of a body that had possessed mine before you ever touched it — and now you’re holding him in one of your cells and you’re going to shoot him. Why not? It’s fair enough. Shoot him. Take his life. You’ve paid for it.”

She saw his eyes, and they were not hurt, they were not angry. They were frightened. He said: “Kira ... I ... I ... I didn’t know.”

She leaned back, and crossed her arms, and rocked softly, laughing: “So you loved me? So I was the highest of women, a woman like a temple, like a military march, like a god’s statue? Remember who told me that? Well, look at me! I’m only a whore and you’re the one who made the first payment! I sold myself — for money — and you paid it. Down in the gutter, that’s where I belong, and your great love put me there. I thought you’d be glad to know that. Aren’t you? So you think I loved you? I thought of Leo when you held me in your arms! When I spoke of love — I was speaking to him. Every kiss you got, every word, every hour was given to him, for him. I’ve never loved him as I loved him in your bed! ... No, I won’t leave you your memories. They’re his. I love him. Do you hear me? I love him! Go ahead! Kill him. Nothing you can do to him will compare with what I’ve done to you. You know that, don’t you?”

She stood, swaying, and her shadow rose to the ceiling, and the shadow rocked as if it were going to crash down.

He repeated helplessly, as if she were not present, as if he were hanging on to the syllables for support: “I didn’t know....”

“No, you didn’t know. But it was very simple. And not very unusual. Go through the garrets and basements where men live in your Red cities and see how many cases like this you can find. He wanted to live. You think everything that breathes can live? You’ve learned differently, I know. But he was one who could have lived. There aren’t many of them, so they don’t count with you. The doctor said he was going to die. And I loved him. You’ve learned what that means, too, haven’t you? He didn’t need much. Only rest, and fresh air, and food. He had no right to that, had he? Your State said so. We tried to beg. We begged humbly. Do you know what they said? There was a doctor in a hospital and he said he had hundreds on his waiting list.”

She leaned forward, her voice soft, confidential, she spread her hands out, trying to explain, suddenly gentle and businesslike and childishly insistent, her lips soft and a little bewildered, and only her eyes fixed and in her eyes, alone, a horror that did not belong in a room where human beings lived but only in a morgue:

“You see, you must understand this thoroughly. No one does. No one sees it, but I do, I can’t help it, I see it, you must see it, too. You understand? Hundreds. Thousands. Millions. Millions of what? Stomachs, and heads, and legs, and tongues, and souls. And it doesn’t even matter whether they fit together. Just millions. Just flesh. Human flesh. And they — it — had been registered and numbered, you know, like tin cans on a store shelf. I wonder if they’re registered by the person or by the pound? And they had a chance to go on living. But not Leo. He was only a man. All stones are cobblestones to you. And diamonds — they’re useless, because they sparkle too brightly in the sun, and it’s too hard on the eyes, and it’s too hard under the hoofs marching into the proletarian future. You don’t pave roads with diamonds. They may have other uses in the world, but of those you’ve never learned. That is why you had sentenced him to death, and others like him, an execution without a firing squad. There was a big commissar and I went to see him. He told me that a hundred thousand workers had died in the civil war and why couldn’t one aristocrat die — in the face of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics? And what is the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics in the face of one man? But that is a question not for you to answer. I’m grateful to that commissar. He gave me permission to do what I’ve done. I don’t hate him. You should hate him. What I’m doing to you — he did it first!”

He stood looking down at her. He said nothing. He did not move. He did not take his eyes off hers.

She walked toward him, her legs crossing each other, with a slow, unsteady deliberation, her body slouching back. She stood looking at him, her face suddenly empty and calm, her eyes like slits, her mouth a thin incision into a flesh without color. She spoke, and he thought that her mouth did not open, words sliding out, crushed, from between closed lips, a voice frightening because it sounded too even and natural:

“That’s the question, you know, don’t you? Why can’t one aristocrat die in the face of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics? You don’t understand that, do you? You and your great commissar, and a million others, like you, like him, that’s what you brought to the world, that question and your answer to it! A great gift, isn’t it? But one of you has been paid. I paid it. In you and to you. For all the sorrow your comrades brought to a living world. How do you like it, Comrade Andrei Taganov of the All-Union Communist Party? If you taught us that our life is nothing before that of the State — well then, are you really suffering? If I brought you to the last hell of despair — well then, why don’t you say that one’s own life doesn’t really matter?” Her voice was rising, like a whip, lashing him ferociously on both cheeks. “You loved a woman and she threw your love in your face? But the proletarian mines in the Don Basin have produced a hundred tons of coal last month! You had two altars and you saw suddenly that a harlot stood on one of them, and Citizen Morozov on the other? But the Proletarian State has exported ten thousand bushels of wheat last month! You’ve had every beam knocked from under your life? But the Proletarian Republic is building a new electric plant on the Volga! Why don’t you smile and sing hymns to the toil of the Collective? It’s still there, your Collective. Go and join it. Did anything really happen to you? It’s nothing but a personal problem of a private life, the kind that only the dead old world could worry about, isn’t it? Don’t you have something greater — greater is the word your comrades use — left to live for? Or do you, Comrade Taganov?”

He did not answer.

Her arms were thrown wide, and her breasts stood out under her old dress, panting, and he thought he could see every muscle of her body, a female’s body in the last convulsion of rage. She screamed:

“Now look at me! Take a good look! I was born and I knew I was alive and I knew what I wanted. What do you think is alive in me? Why do you think I’m alive? Because I have a stomach and eat and digest the food? Because I breathe and work and produce more food to digest? Or because I know what I want, and that something which knows how to want — isn’t that life itself? And who — in this damned universe — who can tell me why I should live for anything but for that which I want? Who can answer that in human sounds that speak for human reason? ... But you’ve tried to tell us what we should want. You came as a solemn army to bring a new life to men. You tore that life you knew nothing about, out of their guts — and you told them what it had to be. You took their every hour, every minute, every nerve, every thought in the farthest corners of their souls — and you told them what it had to be. You came and you forbade life to the living. You’ve driven us all into an iron cellar and you’ve closed all doors, and you’ve locked us airtight, airtight till the blood vessels of our spirits burst! Then you stare and wonder what it’s doing to us. Well, then, look! All of you who have eyes left — look!”

She laughed, her shoulders shaking, stepping close to him. She screamed at his face:

“Why do you stand there? Why don’t you speak? Are you wondering why you’ve never known what I was? Well, here I am! Here’s what’s left after you took him, after you reached for the heart of my life — and do you know what that is? Do you know what it meant when you reached for my highest reverence ...”

She stopped short. She gasped, a choked little sound, as if he had slapped her. She slammed the back of her hand against her mouth. She stood in silence, her eyes staring at something she had seen suddenly, clearly, full for the first time.

He smiled, very slowly, very gently. He stretched out his hands, palms up, shrugging sadly an explanation she did not need.

She moaned: “Oh, Andrei! ...”

She backed away from him, her terrified eyes holding his.

He said slowly: “Kira, had I been in your place, I would have done the same — for the person I loved — for you.”

She moaned, her hand at her mouth: “Oh, Andrei, Andrei, what have I done to you?”

She stood before him, her body sagging, looking suddenly like a frightened child with eyes too big for its white face.

He approached her and took her hand from her mouth and held it in his steady fingers. He said, and his words were like the steps of a man making an immense effort to walk too steadily: “You’re done me a great favor by coming here and telling me what you’ve told. Because, you see, you’ve given me back what I thought I’d lost. You’re still what I thought you were. More than I thought you were. Only ... it’s not anything you’ve done to me ... it’s what you had to suffer and I ... I gave you that suffering, and all those moments were to you ... to you ...”

His voice broke. Then he shook his head, and his voice was firm as a doctor’s: “Listen, child, we won’t talk any more. I want you to keep silent for a little while, quite silent, even silent inside, you understand? Don’t think. Try not to think. You’re trembling. You have to rest. Here. I want you to sit down and just sit still for a few minutes.”

He led her to a chair, and her head fell on his shoulder, and she whispered: “But ... Andrei ... You ...”

“Forget that. Forget everything. Everything will be all right. Just sit still and don’t think.”

He lifted her gently and put her down on a chair by the fire. She did not resist. Her body was limp; her dress was pulled high above her knees. He saw her legs trembling. He took his leather jacket and wrapped it around her legs. He said: “This will keep you warm. It’s cold here. The fire hasn’t been on long enough. Now sit still.”

She did not move. Her head fell back against the edge of the chair; her eyes were closed; one arm hung limply by her side, and the pink glow of the fire twinkled softly on her motionless hand.

He stood in the darkness by the fireplace and looked at her. Somewhere in the Club someone was playing the “Internationale.”

He did not know how long he had stood there, when she stirred and raised her head. He asked: “Do you feel better now?”

Her head moved feebly, trying to nod.

He said: “Now let’s put your coat on and I’ll take you home. I want you to go to bed. Rest and don’t think of anything.”

She did not resist. Her head bent, she watched his fingers buttoning her coat. Then she raised her head, and her eyes looked into his. His eyes smiled at her, in quiet understanding, as he had smiled on their first meetings at the Institute.

He helped her down the long, frozen stairs. He called a sleigh at the garden gate and gave the address of her home, Leo’s home. He buttoned the fur blanket over her knees, and his arm held her as the sleigh tore forward. They rode in silence.

When the sleigh stopped, he said: “Now I want you to rest for a few days. Don’t go anywhere. There’s nothing you can do. Don’t worry about ... him. Leave that to me.”

The snow was deep at the curb by the sidewalk. He lifted her in his arms and carried her to the door and up the stairs. She whispered, and there was no sound, but he saw the movements of her lips: “... Andrei....”

He said: “Everything will be all right.”

He returned to the sleigh, alone. He gave the driver the address of the Party Club, where his comrades were waiting for a report on the agrarian situation.

“... and you’ve locked us airtight, airtight till the blood vessels of our spirits burst! You’ve taken upon your shoulders a burden such as no shoulders in history have ever carried! You said that your end justified your means. But your end, comrades? What is your end?”

The chairman of the Club struck his desk with his gavel. “Comrade Taganov, I’m calling you to order!” he cried. “You will kindly confine your speech to the report on the agrarian situation.”

A wave of motion rippled through the crowded heads, down the long, dim hall, and whispers rose, and somewhere in the back row someone giggled.

Andrei Taganov stood on the speaker’s platform. The hall was dark. A single bulb burned over the chairman’s desk. Andrei’s black leather jacket merged into the black wall behind him. Three white spots stood out, luminous in the darkness: his two long, thin hands and his face. His hands moved slowly over a black void; his face had dark shadows in the eyesockets, in the hollows of the cheekbones. He said, his voice dull, as if he could not hear his own words:

“Yes, the agrarian situation, comrades ... In the last two months, twenty-six Party members have been assassinated in our outlying village districts. Eight clubhouses have been burned. Also three schools and a Communal Farm storehouse. The counter-revolutionary element of village hoarders has to be crushed without mercy. Our Moscow chief cites the example of the village Petrovshino where, upon their refusal to surrender their leaders, the peasants were lined in a row and every third one was shot, while the rest stood waiting. The peasants had locked three Communists from the city in the local Club of Lenin and boarded the windows on the outside and set fire to the house.... The peasants stood and watched it burn and sang, so they would hear no cries.... They were wild beasts.... They were beasts run amuck, beasts crazed with misery.... Perhaps there, too — in those lost villages somewhere so far away — there, too, they have girls, young and straight and more precious than anything on earth, who are driven into the last hell of despair, and men who love them more than life itself, who have to stand by and see it and watch it and have no help to offer! Perhaps they too ...”

“Comrade Taganov!” roared the chairman. “I’m calling you to order!”

“Yes, Comrade Chairman.... Our Moscow chief cites the ... What was I saying, Comrade Chairman? ... Yes, the hoarders’ element in the villages ... Yes ... The Party has to take extraordinary measures against the counter-revolutionary element in the villages, that threatens the progress of our great work among the peasant masses.... Our great work.... We came as a solemn army and forbade life to the living. We thought everything that breathed knew how to live. Does it? And aren’t those who know how to live, aren’t they too precious to be sacrificed in the name of any cause? What cause is greater than those who fight for it? And aren’t those who know how to fight, aren’t they the cause itself and not the means?”

“Comrade Taganov!” roared the chairman. “I’m calling you to order!”

“I’m here to make a report to my Party comrades, Comrade Chairman. It’s a very crucial report and I think they should hear it. Yes, it’s about our work in the villages, and in the cities, and among the millions, the living millions. Only there are questions. There are questions that must be answered. Why should we be afraid if we can answer them? But if we can’t... ? If we can’t? ... Comrades! Brothers! Listen to me! Listen, you consecrated warriors of a new life! Are we sure we know what we are doing? No one can tell men what they must live for. No one can take that right — because there are things in men, in the best of us, which are above all states, above all collectives! Do you ask: what things? Man’s mind and his values. Look into yourself, honestly and fearlessly. Look and don’t tell me, don’t tell any one, just tell yourself: what are you living for? Aren’t you living for yourself and only for yourself? Call it your aim, your love, your cause — isn’t it still your cause? Give your life, die for your ideal — isn’t it still your ideal? Every honest man lives for himself. Every man worth calling a man lives for himself. The one who doesn’t — doesn’t live at all. You cannot change it. You cannot change it because that’s the way man is born, alone, complete, an end in himself. No laws, no Party, no G.P.U. will ever kill that thing in man which knows how to say ‘I.’ You cannot enslave man’s mind, you can only destroy it. You have tried. Now look at what you’re getting. Look at those whom you allow to triumph. Deny the best in men — and see what will survive. Do we want the crippled, creeping, crawling, broken monstrosities that we’re producing? Are we not castrating life in order to perpetuate it?”

“Comrade Ta ...”

“Brothers! Listen! We have to answer this!” The two luminous white hands flew up over a black void, and his voice rose, ringing, as it had risen in a dark valley over the White trenches many years ago. “We have to answer this! If we don’t — history will answer it for us. And we shall go down with a burden on our shoulders that will never be forgiven! What is our goal, comrades? What are we doing? Do we want to feed a starved humanity in order to let it live? Or do we want to strangle its life in order to feed it?”

“Comrade Taganov!” roared the chairman. “I deprive you of speech!”

“I ... I ...” panted Andrei Taganov, staggering down the platform steps. “I have nothing more to say....”

He walked out, down the long aisle, a tall, gaunt, lonely figure. Heads turned to look at him. Somewhere in the back row someone whistled through his teeth, a long, low, sneering triumphant sound.

When the door closed after him, someone whispered:

“Let Comrade Taganov wait for the next Party purge!”

XIV

COMRADE SONIA SAT AT THE TABLE, IN a faded lavender kimono, with a pencil behind her ear. The kimono did not meet in front, for she had grown to proportions that could not be concealed any longer. She bent under the lamp, running through the pages of a calendar; she seized the pencil once in a while, jotting hurried notes down on a scrap of paper, and bit the pencil, a purple streak spreading on her lower lip, for the pencil was indelible.

Pavel Syerov lay on the davenport, his stocking feet high on its arm, reading a newspaper, chewing sunflower seeds. He spat the shells into a pile on a newspaper spread on the floor by the davenport. The shells made a little sizzling sound, leaving his lips. Pavel Syerov looked bored.

“Our child,” said Comrade Sonia, “will be a new citizen of a new state. It will be brought up in the free, healthy ideology of the proletariat, without any bourgeois prejudices to hamper its natural development.”

“Yeah,” said Pavel Syerov without looking up from his newspaper.

“I shall have it registered with the Pioneers, the very day it’s born. Won’t you be proud of your living contribution to the Soviet future, when you see it marching with other little citizens, in blue trunks and with a red kerchief around its neck?”

“Sure,” said Pavel Syerov, spitting a shell down on the newspaper.

“We’ll have a real Red christening. You know, no priests, only our Party comrades, a civil ceremony, and appropriate speeches. I’m trying to decide on a name and ... Are you listening to me, Pavel?”

“Sure,” said Syerov, sticking a seed between his teeth.

“There are many good suggestions for new, revolutionary names here in the calendar, instead of the foolish old saints’ names. I’ve copied some good ones. Now what do you think? If it’s a boy, I think Ninel would be nice.”

“What the hell’s that?”

“Pavel, I won’t tolerate such language and such ignorance! You haven’t given a single thought to your child’s name, have you?”

“Well, say, I still have time, haven’t I?”

“You’re not interested, that’s all, don’t you fool me, Pavel Syerov, and don’t you fool yourself thinking I’ll forget it!”

“Aw, come on, now, Sonia, really, you know, I’m leaving the name up to you. You know best.”

“Yes. As usual. Well, Ninel is our great leader Lenin’s name — reversed. Very appropriate. Or we could call him Vil — that’s for our great leader’s initials — Vladimir Ilyitch Lenin. See?”

“Yeah. Well, either one’s good enough for me.”

“Now, if it’s a girl — and I hope it’s a girl, because the new woman is coming into her own and the future belongs, to a greater extent than you men imagine, to the free woman of the proletariat — well, if it’s a girl, I have some good names here, but the one I like best is Octiabrina, because that would be a living monument to our great October Revolution.”

“Sort of ... long, isn’t it?”

“What of it? It’s a very good name and very popular. You know, Fimka Popova, she had a Red christening week before last and that’s what she called her brat — Octiabrina. Even got a notice in the paper about it. Her husband was so proud — the blind fool!”

“Now, Sonia, you shouldn’t insinuate ...”

“Listen to the respectable moralist! That bitch Fimka is known as a ... Oh, to hell with her! But if she thinks she’s the only one to get a notice in the paper about her litter I’ll ... I’ve copied some other names here, too. Good modern ones. There’s Marxina, for Karl Marx. Or else Communara. Or ...”

Something clattered loudly under the table.

“Oh, hell!” said Comrade Sonia. “Those damn slippers of mine!” She wriggled uncomfortably on her chair, stretching out one leg, her foot groping under the table. She found the slipper and bent painfully over her abdomen, pulling the slipper on by a flat, wornout heel. “Look at the old junk I have to wear! And I need so many things, and with the child coming ... You would choose a good time to write certain literary compositions and ruin everything, you drunken fool!”

“Now we won’t bring that up again, Sonia. You know I was lucky to get out of it as I did.”

“Yeah! Well, I hope your Kovalensky gets the firing squad and a nice, loud trial. I’ll see to it that the women of the Zhenotdel stage a demonstration of protest against Speculators and Aristocrats!” She fingered the pages of the calendar and cried: “Here’s another good one for a girl: Tribuna. Or — Barricada. Or, if we prefer something in the spirit of modern science: Universiteta.”

“That’s too long,” said Syerov.

“I prefer Octiabrina. More symbol to that. I hope it’s a girl. Octiabrina Syerova — the leader of the future. What do you want it to be, Pavel, a boy or a girl?”

“I don’t care,” said Syerov, “so long as it isn’t twins.”

“Now I don’t like that remark at all. It shows that you ...”

They heard a knock at the door. The knock seemed too loud, too peremptory. Syerov, his head up, dropped the newspaper and said: “Come in.”

Andrei Taganov entered and closed the door. Comrade Sonia dropped her calendar. Pavel Syerov rose slowly to his feet.

“Good evening,” said Andrei.

“Good evening,” said Syerov, watching him fixedly.

“What’s the big idea, Taganov?” Comrade Sonia asked, her voice low, husky, menacing.

Andrei did not turn to her. He said: “I want to speak to you, Syerov.”

“Go ahead,” said Syerov without moving.

“I said I want to speak to you alone.”

“I said go ahead,” Syerov repeated.

“Tell your wife to get out.”

“My husband and I,” said Comrade Sonia, “have no secrets from each other.”

“You get out of here,” said Andrei, without raising his voice, “and wait in the corridor.”

“Pavel! If he ...”

“You’d better go, Sonia,” said Syerov slowly, without looking at her, his eyes fixed on Andrei.

Comrade Sonia coughed out a single chuckle from the corner of her mouth: “Comrade Taganov still going strong, eh? Well, we shall see what we shall see and we don’t have long to wait.”

She gathered her lavender kimono, pulling it tightly across her abdomen, stuck a cigarette into her mouth and walked out, the slippers flapping against her heels.

“I thought,” said Pavel Syerov, “that you had learned a lesson in the last few days.”

“I have,” said Andrei.

“What else do you want?”

“You’d better put your shoes on while I’m talking. You’re going out and you haven’t much time to lose.”

“Am I? Glad you let me in on the little secret. Otherwise I might have said that I had no such intention. And maybe I’ll still say it. Where am I going, according to Comrade Mussolini Taganov?”

“To release Leo Kovalensky.”

Pavel Syerov sat down heavily and his feet scattered the pile of sunflower-seed shells over the floor. “What are you up to, Taganov? Gone insane, have you?”

“You’d better keep still and listen. I’ll tell you what you have to do.”

“You’ll tell me what I have to do? Why?”

“And after that, I’ll tell you why you will do it. You’ll dress right now and go to see your friend. You know what friend I mean. The one at the G.P.U.”

“At this hour?”

“Get him out of bed, if necessary. What you’ll tell him and how you’ll tell it, is none of my business. All I have to know is that Leo Kovalensky is released within forty-eight hours.”

“Now will you let me in on the little magic wand that will make me do it?”

“It’s a little paper wand, Syerov. Two of them.”

“Written by whom?”

“You.”

“Huh?”

“Photographed from one written by you, to be exact.”

Syerov rose slowly and leaned with both hands on the table. “Taganov, you God-damn rat!” he hissed. “It’s a rotten time to be joking.”

“Am I?”

“Well, I’ll go to see my friend all right. And you’ll see Leo Kovalensky all right — and it won’t take you forty-eight hours, either. I’ll see to it that you get the cell next to his and then we’ll find out what documents ...”

“There are two photostats of it, as I said. Only I don’t happen to have either one of them.”

“What ... what did you ...”

“They’re in the possession of two friends I can trust. It would be useless to try to find out their names. You know me well enough to discard any idea of the G.P.U. torture chamber, if that idea occurs to you. Their instructions are that if anything happens to me before Leo Kovalensky is out — the photostats go to Moscow. Also — if anything happens to him after he’s out.”

“You God-d ...”

“You don’t want those photostats to reach Moscow. Your friend won’t be able to save your neck, then, nor his own, perhaps. You don’t have to worry about my becoming a nuisance. All you have to do is release Leo Kovalensky and hush up this whole case. You’ll never hear of those photostats again. You’ll never see them, either.”

Syerov reached for his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. “You’re lying,” he said hoarsely. “You’ve never taken any photostats.”

“Maybe,” said Andrei. “Want to take a chance on that?”

“Sit down,” said Syerov, falling on the davenport.

Andrei sat down on the edge of the table and crossed his legs.

“Listen, Andrei,” said Syerov. “Let’s talk sense. All right, you’re holding the whip. Still, do you know what you’re asking?”

“No more than you can do.”

“But, good Lord in Heaven, Andrei! It’s such a big case and we’re all set with a first-class propaganda campaign and the newspapers are getting headlines ready to ...”

“Stop them.”

“But how can I? How can I ask him? What am I going to tell him?”

“That’s none of my business.”

“But after he’s already saved my ...”

“Don’t forget it’s in his interests, too. He may have friends in Moscow. And he may have some who aren’t friends.”

“But, listen ...”

“And when Party members can no longer be saved, they’re the ones who get it worse than the private speculators, you know. Also a good occasion for first-class propaganda.”

“Andrei, one of us has gone insane. I can’t figure it out. Why do you want Kovalensky released?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“And if you’ve appointed yourself his guardian angel, then why the hell did you start the whole damn case? You started it, you know.”

“You said that I had learned a lesson.”

“Andrei, haven’t you got any Party honor left? We need a good smashing bang at the speculators right now, with food conditions as they are and all the ...”

“That doesn’t concern me any longer.”

“You damn traitor! You said it was the only copy of the letter in existence, when you turned it in!”

“Maybe I was lying then.”

“Listen, let’s talk business. Here — have a cigarette.”

“No, thank you.”

“Listen, let’s talk as friend to friend. I take back all those things I said to you. I apologize. You can’t blame me, you know how it is, you can see it’s enough to make a fellow lose his mind a little. All right, you have your own game to play, I had mine and I made a misstep, but then we’re both no innocent angels, as I can see, so we can understand each other. We used to be good friends, childhood friends, remember? So we can talk sensibly.”

“About what?”

“I have an offer to make to you, Andrei. A good one. That friend of mine, he can do a lot if I slip a couple of words to him, as you know, I guess. I guess you know that I have enough on him for a firing squad, too. You’re learning the same game, I see, and doing it brilliantly, I must hand it to you. All right, we understand each other. Now I can talk plain. I guess you know that your spot in the Party isn’t so good any more. Not so good at all. And particularly after that little speech you made tonight — really, you know, it won’t be so easy on you at the next Party purge.”

“I know it.”

“In fact, you’re pretty sure to get the axe, you know.”

“I do.”

“Well, then, what do you say if we make a bargain? You drop this case and I’ll see to it that you keep your Party card and not only that, but you can have any job you choose at the G.P.U. and name your own salary. No questions asked and no ill feeling. We all have our own way to make. You and I — we can help each other a lot. What do you say?”

“What makes you think that I want to remain in the Party?”

“Andrei! ...”

“You don’t have to worry about helping me at the next purge. I may be kicked out of the Party or I may be shot or I may be run over by a truck. That won’t make any difference to you. Understand? But don’t touch Leo Kovalensky. See that no one touches him. Watch him as you would watch your own child, no matter what happens to me. I am not his guardian angel. You are.”

“Andrei,” Syerov moaned, “what is that damned aristocrat to you?”

“I’ve answered that question once.”

Syerov rose unsteadily and drew himself up for a last, desperate effort: “Listen, Andrei, I have something to tell you. I thought you knew it, but I guess you don’t. Only pull yourself together and listen, and don’t kill me on the first word. I know there’s a name you don’t want to be mentioned, but I’ll mention it. It’s Kira Argounova.”

“Well?”

“Listen, we’re not mincing words, are we? Hell, not now we aren’t. Well, then, listen: you love her and you’ve been sleeping with her for over a year. And.... Wait! Let me finish.... Well, she’s been Leo Kovalensky’s mistress all that time.... Wait! You don’t have to take my word for it. Just check up on it and see for yourself.”

“Why check up on it? I know it.”

“Oh!” said Pavel Syerov.

He stood, rocking slowly from heels to toes, looking at Andrei. Then he laughed. “Well,” he said, “I should have known.”

“Get your coat,” said Andrei, rising.

“I should have known,” laughed Syerov, “why the saint of the Comm-party would go in for blackmail. You fool! You poor, virtuous, brainless fool! So that’s the kind of grandstand you’re playing! I should have known that the lofty heroics are a disease one never gets cured of! Come on, Andrei! Haven’t you any sense left? Any pride?”

“We’ve talked long enough,” said Andrei. “You seem to know a lot about me. You should know that I don’t change my mind.”

Pavel Syerov reached for his overcoat and pulled it on slowly, his pale lips grinning.

“All right, Sir Galahad or whatever it’s called,” he said. “Sir Galahad of the blackmail sword. You win — this time. It’s no use threatening you with any retaliation. Fellows like you get theirs without any help from fellows like me. In a year — this little mess will be forgotten. I’ll be running the railroads of the U.S.S.R. and buying satin diapers for my brat. You’ll be standing in line for a pot of soup — and maybe you’ll get it. But you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that your sweetheart is being ... by a man you hate!”

“Yes,” said Andrei. “Good luck, Comrade Syerov.”

“Good luck, Comrade Taganov.”

Kira sat on the floor, folding Leo’s underwear, putting it back into the drawer. Her dresses were still piled in a heap before her open wardrobe. Papers rustled all over the room when she moved. Down from the torn pillows fluttered like snow over the furniture.

She had not been out for two days. She had heard no sound from the world beyond the walls of her room. Galina Petrovna had telephoned once and wailed into the receiver; Kira had told her not to worry and please not to come over; Galina Petrovna had not come.

The Lavrovs had decided that their neighbor was not shaken by her tragedy; they heard no tears; they noticed nothing unusual in the frail little figure whom they watched sidewise when they crossed her room on their way to the bathroom. They noticed only that she seemed lazy, for her limbs fell and remained in any position, and it took her an effort to move them; and her eyes remained fixed on one spot and it took a bigger effort to shift her glance, and her glance was like a forty-pound sack of sand being dragged by a child’s fist.

She sat on the floor and folded shirts neatly, creasing every pleat, slipping them cautiously into the drawer on the palms of her two hands. One shirt had Leo’s initials embroidered on the breast pocket; she sat staring at it, without moving.

She did not raise her head when she heard the door opening.

“Allo, Kira,” said a voice.

She fell back against the open drawer and it slammed shut with a crash. Leo was looking down at her. His lips drooped, but it was not a smile; his lips had no color; the circles under his eyes were blue and sharp, as if painted on by an amateur actor.

“Kira ... please ... no hysterics ...” he said wearily.

She rose slowly, her arms swinging limply. She stood, her fingers crumpling the hair on her right temple, looking at him incredulously, afraid to touch him.

“Leo ... Leo ... you’re not ... free, are you?”

“Yes. Free. Released. Kicked out.”

“Leo ... how ... how could it ... happen ... ?”

“How do I know? I thought you knew something about that.”

She was kissing his lips, his neck, the muscles exposed by his torn shirt collar, his hands, his palms. He patted her hair and looked indifferently over her head, at the wrecked room.

“Leo ...” she whispered, looking up into his dead eyes, “what have they done to you?”

“Nothing.”

“Did they ... did they ... I heard they sometimes ...”

“No, they didn’t torture me. They say they have a room for that, but I didn’t have the privilege.... I had a nice cell all to myself and three meals a day, although the soup was rotten. I just sat there for two days and thought of what last words I could say before the firing squad. As good a pastime as any.”

She took his coat off; she pushed him into an armchair; she knelt, pulling off his overshoes; she pressed her head to his knees for a second and jerked it away, and bent lower, to hide her face, and tied his unfastened shoestring with trembling fingers.

He asked: “Have I any clean underwear left?”

“Yes ... I’ll get it ... only ... Leo ... I want to know ... you haven’t told me ...”

“What is there to tell? I guess it’s all over. The case is closed. They told me to see that I don’t get into the G.P.U. for a third time.” He added indifferently: “I think your friend Taganov had something to do with my release.”

“He ...”

“You didn’t ask him to?”

“No,” she said, rising. “No, I didn’t ask him.”

“Did they ruin the furniture completely, and the bed, too?”

“Who? ... Oh, the search ... No ... Yes, I guess they have.... Leo!” she cried suddenly, so that he shuddered and looked at her, lifting his eyelids with effort. “Leo, have you nothing to say?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Aren’t you ... aren’t you glad to see me?”

“Sure. You look nice. Your hair needs combing.”

“Leo, did you think of me ... there?”

“No.”

“You ... didn’t?”

“No. What for? To make it easier?”

“Leo, do you ... love me?”

“Oh, what a question.... What a question at what a time.... You’re getting feminine, Kira.... Really, it’s not becoming.... Not becoming at all....”

“I’m sorry, dear. I know it’s foolish. I don’t know why I had to ask it just then.... You’re so tired. I’ll get your underwear and I’ll fix your dinner. You haven’t had dinner, have you?”

“No. I don’t want any. Is there anything to drink in the house?”

“Leo ... you’re not going ... again ... to ...”

“Leave me alone, will you? Get the hell out, please could you? Go to your parents ... or something ...”

“Leo!” She stood, her hands in her hair, staring down at him incredulously. “Leo, what have they done to you?”

His head was leaning back against the chair and she looked at the quivering white triangle of his neck and chin; he spoke, his eyes closed, only his lips moving, his voice even and flat: “Nothing.... No one’s going to do anything to me any more.... No one.... Not you nor anyone else.... No one can hurt me but you — and now you can’t either.... No one....”

“Leo!” She seized his limp, white-faced head and shook it furiously, pitilessly. “Leo! It can’t get you like this! It won’t get you!”

He seized her hand and flung it aside. “Will you ever come down to earth? What do you want? Want me to sing of life with little excursions to the G.P.U. between hymns? Afraid they’ve broken me? Afraid they’ll get me? Want me to keep something that the mire can’t reach, the more to suffer while it sucks me under? You’re being kind to me, aren’t you, because you love me so much? Don’t you think you’d be kinder if you’d let me fall into the mire? So that I’d be one with our times and would feel nothing any longer ... nothing ... ever ...”

A hand knocked at the door.

“Come in,” said Kira.

Andrei Taganov came in. “Good evening, Kira,” he said and stopped, seeing Leo.

“Good evening, Andrei,” said Kira.

Leo raised his head with effort. His eyes looked faintly startled.

“Good evening,” said Andrei, turning to him. “I didn’t know you were out already.”

“I’m out. I thought you had reason to expect it.”

“I did. But I didn’t know they’d hurry. I’m sorry to intrude like this. I know you don’t want to see any visitors.”

“It’s all right, Andrei,” said Kira. “Sit down.”

“There’s something I have to tell you, Kira.” He turned to Leo: “Would you mind if I took Kira out — for a few minutes?”

“I certainly would,” Leo answered slowly. “Have you any secrets to discuss with Kira?”

“Leo!” Her voice was almost a scream. She added, quietly, her voice still trembling: “Come on, Andrei.”

“No,” said Andrei calmly, sitting down. “It isn’t really necessary. It’s not a secret.” He turned to Leo. “I just wanted to spare you the necessity of ... of feeling indebted to me, but perhaps it would be better if you heard it, too. Sit down, Kira. It’s perfectly all right. It’s about his release from the G.P.U.”

Leo was looking at him fixedly, silently, leaning forward. Kira stood, her shoulders hunched, her hands clasped behind her back, as if they were tied. She looked at Andrei; his eyes were clear, serene.

“Sit down, Kira,” he said almost gently.

She obeyed.

“There’s something you should know, both of you,” said Andrei, “for your own protection. I couldn’t tell you sooner, Kira. I had to be sure that it had worked. Well, it has. I suppose you know who’s really behind your release. It’s Pavel Syerov. I want you to know what’s behind him — in case you ever need it.”

“It’s you, isn’t it?” asked Leo, a faint edge of sharpness in his voice.

“Leo, keep quiet. Please!” said Kira, turning away not to see his eyes watching her.

“It’s a letter,” Andrei continued calmly. “A letter he wrote and you know what that was. The letter had been sent to me ... by someone else. Syerov has powerful friends. That saved him. But he’s not very brave. That saved you. The letter had been destroyed. But I told him that I had photostats of it and that they were in the possession of friends who would send them to higher authorities in Moscow — unless you were released. The case is killed. I don’t think they’ll ever bother you again. But I want you to know this, so that you can hold it over Syerov’s head — if you need it. Let him think that you know the photostats are in good hands — and on their way to Moscow, if he makes one step in your direction. That’s all. I don’t think you’ll ever need it. But it’s a useful protection to have, in these times — and with your social record.”

“And ... the photostats?” Kira whispered. “Where are they actually?”

“There are no photostats,” said Andrei.

A truck thundered in the street below and the window panes trembled in the silence.

Andrei’s eyes met Kira’s. Their eyes met and parted swiftly, for Leo was watching them.

It was Leo who spoke first. He rose and walked to Andrei, and stood looking down at him. Then he said: “I suppose I should thank you. Well, consider me grateful. Only I won’t say that I thank you from the bottom of my heart, because in the bottom of my heart I wish you had left me where I was.”

“Why?” Andrei asked, looking up at him.

“Do you suppose Lazarus was grateful when Christ brought him back from the grave — if He did? No more than I am to you, I think.”

Andrei looked at him steadily; Andrei’s face was stern; his words were a threat: “Pull yourself together. You have so much to live for.”

Leo shrugged and did not answer.

“You’ll have to close that store of yours. Try to get a job. Better not a very prominent one. You’ll hate it. But you’ll have to stick to it.”

“If I can.”

“You can. You have to.”

“Do I?” said Leo, and Kira saw his eyes watching Andrei closely.

She asked: “Andrei, why did you want to tell us about Syerov’s letter?” “So that you’d know in case ... in case anything happened to me.”

“What is going to happen to you, Andrei?”

“Nothing ... Nothing that I know of.” He added, rising: “Except that I’m going to be thrown out of the Party, I think.”

“It ... it meant a lot to you, didn’t it ... your Party?”

“It did.”

“And ... and when you lose something that meant a lot to you, does it ... make any difference?”

“No. It still means a lot to me.”

“Will you ... hate them for it ... for throwing you out?”

“No.”

“Will you ... forgive them ... some day?”

“I have nothing to forgive. Because, you see, I have a lot to be grateful for, in the past, when I belonged to — to the Party. I don’t want them to feel that they had been ... unjust. Or that I blame them. I can never tell them that I understand. But I would like them to know it.”

“Perhaps they may be worried ... although they have no right to question you any longer ... about a life they may have broken ...”

“If I could ask a favor — when they throw me out — I’d ask them not to worry about me. So that ... in the Party annals ... I won’t become a wound, but a bearable memory. Then, my memories will be bearable, too.”

“I think they’d grant you that ... if they knew.”

“I’d thank them ... if I could.”

He turned and took his cap from the table and said, buttoning his jacket: “Well, I have to go. Oh, yes, another thing: keep away from Morozov. I understand he’s leaving town, but he’ll be back and starting some new scheme. Keep away. He’ll always get out of it and leave you to take the blame.”

“Shall we ... see you again, Andrei?” asked Kira.

“Sure. I’ll be very busy — for a while. But I’ll be around ... Well, good night.”

“Good night, Andrei.”

“Wait a minute,” said Leo suddenly. “There’s something I want to ask you.”

He walked to Andrei, and stood, his hands in his pockets, his lips spitting the words out slowly: “Just why did you do all this? Just what is Kira to you?”

Andrei looked at Kira. She stood, silent, erect, looking at them. She was leaving it up to him. He turned to Leo and answered: “Just a friend.”

“Good night,” said Leo.

The door had closed, and the door in Lavrov’s room, and in the silence they heard the door in the lobby opening and closing behind Andrei. Then Kira tore forward suddenly. Leo could not see her face. He heard only a sound that was not a moan and not quite a cry. She ran out of the room, and the door slammed shut behind her, and the crystals of the chandelier tinkled softly.

She ran down the stairs, out into the street. It was snowing. She felt the air like a scalding jet of steam striking her bare neck. Her feet felt very light and thin in their open slippers in the snow. She saw his tall figure walking away and she ran after him, calling: “Andrei!”

He wheeled about and gasped: “Kira! In the snow without a coat!”

He seized her arm and jerked her back into the house, into the dim little lobby at the foot of the stairs.

“Go back! Immediately!” he ordered.

“Andrei ...” she stammered. “I ... I ...”

In the light of a lamp post from across the street, she saw him smiling slowly, gently, and his hand brushed the wet snowflakes off her hair. “Kira, don’t you think it’s better — like this?” he whispered. “If we don’t say anything — and just leave it to ... to our silence, knowing that we both understand, and that we still have that much in common?”

“Yes, Andrei,” she whispered.

“Don’t worry about me. You’ve promised that, you know. Go back now. You’ll catch cold.”

She raised her hand, and her fingers brushed his cheek slowly, barely touching it, from the scar on his temple to his chin, as if her trembling finger tips could tell him something she could not say. He took her hand and pressed it to his lips and held it for a long time. A car passed in the street outside; through the glass door, the sharp beam of a headlight swept over their faces, licked the wall and vanished.

He dropped her hand. She turned and walked slowly up the stairs. She heard the door opening and closing behind her. She did not look back.

When she returned to her room, Leo was telephoning. She heard him saying: “Allo, Tonia? ... Yes, I just got out.... I’ll tell you all about it.... Sure, come right over.... Bring some. I haven’t got a drop in the house....”

Andrei Taganov was transferred from the G.P.U. to the job of librarian in the library of the Lenin’s Nook of the Club of Women Houseworkers in the suburb Lesnoe.

The clubhouse was a former church. It had old wooden walls that let the wind through, to rustle the bright posters inside; a slanting beam of unpainted wood in the center, supporting a roof ready to cave in; a window covered with boards over the dusty remnants of a glass pane; and a cast-iron “Bourgeoise” that filled the room with smoke. There was a banner of red calico over the former altar, and pictures of Lenin on the walls, pictures without frames, cut out of magazines: Lenin as a child, Lenin as a student, Lenin addressing the Petrograd Soviet, Lenin in a cap, Lenin without a cap, Lenin in the Council of People’s Commissars, Lenin in his coffin. There were shelves of books in paper covers, a sign that read: “Proletarians of the World, Unite!” and a plaster bust of Lenin with a scar of glue across his chin.

Andrei Taganov tried to hold on.

At five o’clock, when store windows made yellow squares in the snow and the lights of tramways rolled like colored beads high over the dark streets, he left the Technological Institute and rode to Lesnoe, sitting at the window of a crowded tramway, eating a sandwich, for he had no time to eat dinner. From six to nine, he sat alone in the library of the Lenin’s Nook of the Club of Women Houseworkers, wrote card indexes, glued torn covers, added wood to the “Bourgeoise,” numbered books, dusted shelves, and said when a woman’s figure in a gray shawl waddled in, shaking snow off her heavy felt-boots:

“Good evening, comrade.... No, ‘The A B C of Communism’ is not in. I have your reservation, comrade.... Yes, this is a very good book, Comrade Samsonova, very instructive and strictly proletarian.... Yes, Comrade Danilova, it is recommended by the Party Council as indispensable to the political education of a conscientious worker.... Please, comrade, do not draw pictures on library books in the future.... Yes, I know, comrade, the stove isn’t very good, it always smokes this way.... No, we don’t carry any books on birth control.... Yes, Comrade Selivanova, it is advisable to get acquainted with all of Comrade Lenin’s works in order to understand our great leader’s ideology.... Please close the door, comrade.... Sorry, comrade, we have no rest-room.... No, we have no books by Mussolini.... No, we carry no love stories, Comrade Ziablova.... No, Comrade Ziablova, I can’t take you to the Club dance Sunday.... No, ‘The A B C of Communism’ is not in, comrade....”

In the offices of the G.P.U. they whispered: “Let Comrade Taganov wait for the next Party purge.”

Comrade Taganov did not wait for the next Party purge.

On a Saturday evening, he stood in line at the district co-operative for his food rations. The co-operative smelled of kerosene and rotted onions. There was a barrel of sauerkraut by the counter, a sack of dried vegetables, a can of linseed oil, and bars of bluish Joukov soap. A kerosene lamp smoked on the counter. A line of customers stretched across the long, bare room. There was only one clerk; he had a sty over his left eye and he looked sleepy.

A little man stood in line ahead of Andrei. His coat collar was loose, with a greenish, greasy patch at the nape of his neck. His neck was thin and wrinkled, with an Adam’s apple like a chicken’s craw. He fingered his ration card nervously and fidgeted, peering past the line at the counter. He sniffled sonorously, for he had a cold, and scratched his Adam’s apple.

He turned and grinned amicably up at Andrei. “Party comrade?” he asked, pointing a gnarled finger at the red star on Andrei’s lapel. “Me, too, comrade. Sure, Party member. Here’s my star, too. Cold weather we’re having, comrade. Awfully cold weather. I hope the dried vegetables aren’t all gone before our turn comes, comrade. They’re wonderful for making soup Julienne. Really should have meat for it, though, but I’ll tell you a nice little trick: just let them soak overnight, then boil them in plain water, and when it’s almost ready drop in a spoonful of sunflower-seed oil, just one spoonful, and it makes such nice grease spots float on the surface, just the same as if you had meat, never tell the difference. Yes, I sure like soup Julienne. Hope they’re not all gone before our turn comes. He’s not very fast, that clerk. Only I’m not complaining. No, please, don’t think I’m complaining, comrade.”

He peered at the counter, fingered his card, counted the coupons, scratched his Adam’s apple, and whispered confidentially: “Only I hope the vegetables aren’t all gone. And another thing: I wish they would give us all the stuff in the same place. We wait for the general products here, and tomorrow two hours at the bread store, and day after-tomorrow here again for kerosene. Still, I don’t mind. Next week, they say, we’re going to get lard. That will be a holiday, won’t it? That’s something to look forward to, isn’t it?”

When Andrei’s turn came, the clerk shoved the rations at him, seized his card impatiently and growled: “What the hell’s the matter, citizen? Your coupon’s half torn off.”

“I don’t know,” said Andrei. “I must have torn it accidentally.”

“Well, I could have refused to accept it, you know. Not supposed to be half torn off. I got no time to check on all of you mugs. See that it’s right, next month.”

“Next ... month?” said Andrei.

“Yeah, and next year, too, or else go empty-bellied.... Next!”

Andrei walked out of the co-operative with a pound of sauerkraut, a pound of linseed oil, a bar of soap and two pounds of dried vegetables for soup Julienne.

He walked slowly, and the streets were white with a hard, polished snow, and men’s heels cut sharp ridges, creaking. Snow sparkled like salt crystals in the white circles of lamp posts; and in the yellow cones of light at store windows, snow twinkled like splinters of powdered fire. Under a soft, glassy fuzz of frost, a poster showed a husky giant in a red blouse, raising two arms imperiously, triumphantly to the red letters:

WE ARE THE BUILDERS OF A NEW HUMANITY!

Andrei’s steps were steady, calm. Andrei Taganov was always calm when he had reached a decision.

He turned on the light, when he entered his room, and put his packages on the table. He took off his cap and jacket, and hung them on a nail in the corner. A strand of hair fell across his forehead; he brushed it back with a long, slow movement. He had left a few coals smouldering in the fireplace and the room was hot. He took off his coat and straightened the wrinkled sleeves of his shirt.

He looked around slowly. He saw some books on the floor, and picked them up, and put them neatly into a pile on the table.

He lighted a cigarette and stood in the middle of the room, his elbow pressed to his side, like a wax figure in a store window, motionless but for the slow movement of one forearm with a hand tracing an even line in the air, carrying to his lips a cigarette held in two long, straight fingers. Nothing moved in the room but that arm with a motionless hand, and the smoke rising slowly, at his lips, then at his shoulder, then at his lips again, the ashes falling to the floor.

When he felt a hot breath on his fingers and saw that the cigarette had burned, he threw the stub into the fireplace and walked to his table. He sat down and opened the drawers, one by one, and looked through their contents. He took out a few papers and gathered them into a pile on the table.

Then he rose and walked to the fireplace. He knelt and stuffed newspapers into the coals and blew at them until bright orange tongues leaped up. He threw two logs into the fire and stood, watching them until he saw white flames spurt from the creaking bark. Then he walked to the table, took the pile of papers he had selected and threw it into the fire.

Then he opened the old boxes that served as his wardrobe. There were the things he did not want to be found in his room. He took a girl’s black satin robe and threw it into the fire. He watched the cloth shriveling slowly in red, glowing, flameless patches, with long, thin columns of smoke, with a heavy, acrid odor. He watched it, his eyes quiet, astonished.

Then he threw in a pair of black satin slippers, and a little lace handkerchief, and a lace jacket with white ribbons. A sleeve of the jacket rolled out on the blackened bricks by the fireplace; he bent and, lifting it delicately, placed it back over the flames.

Then he found “The American Resident,” the little glass toy with a black imp in a red liquid. He looked at it, and hesitated, and put it cautiously down into the smouldering lace. The glass tube cracked, and the liquid sizzled on the coals with a sharp little puff of steam, and “The Resident” rolled into a crack among the coals.

Then he took out the black chiffon nightgown.

He stood at the fireplace and held the gown in both hands, and his fingers crumpled slowly, softly the light silk that felt like a handful of smoke. He held it on his two palms, and looked at his fingers through the thin black film, and moved his fingers slowly.

Then he knelt and spread it over the fire. For a second, the red coals were dimmed as under a clouded black glass; then the gown shuddered, as in a gust of wind, and a corner of the hem curled up, and a thin blue flame shot out of a fold at the neckline.

He rose and stood watching it; he watched glowing red threads running down the black cloth, and the black film twisting, as if it were breathing, curling, shrinking slowly into a smoke light as the cloth.

He stood for a long time, looking at the motionless black thing with twinkling red edges, that still had the shape of a gown, but it was not transparent any longer.

Then he touched it softly with his foot. It crumbled almost before it was touched, and little black flames fluttered up into the chimney.

He turned away and sat down at the table. He sat with one forearm resting on the table and the other on his knee, his hands hanging down, ten fingers motionless, straight, broken only by the small angles of the joints, so still that they seemed grown fast to the air. An old alarm clock ticked on a shelf. His face was grave, quiet. His eyes were gentle, astonished, wondering....

Then he turned, and took a piece of paper from the drawer, and wrote: “No one is to be held responsible for my death.” And signed: “Andrei Taganov.”

There was only one shot, and because the frozen marble stairway was long and dark and led to a garden buried in deep snow, no one came up to investigate.

XV

ON THE FRONT PAGES OF THE Pravda, a square in a heavy black frame carried the words:

The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party expresses its profound grief at the death of a heroic fighter of the Revolution, former member of the Red Army, member of the Party since 1915,

COMRADE ANDREI TAGANOV

Under it, another square in a heavy black frame said:

The Leningrad Committee of the All-Union Communist Party sorrowfully announces the death of

COMRADE ANDREI TAGANOV

The funeral will take place tomorrow, on the Field of Victims of the Revolution. The procession will start from the Smolny Institute at 10 o’clock in the morning.

An editorial of the Pravda said:

Another name has been added to the glorious list of victims fallen on the field of honor of the Revolution. That name may not be known to many, but it represents and symbolizes the common ranks of our Party, the unsung heroes of our weekdays. In the person of Comrade Andrei Taganov, we pay a last tribute to the unknown warriors of the Army of the Proletariat. Comrade Taganov is dead. He committed suicide under the strain of a nervous collapse caused by overwork. His health and body were broken by the demanding, ceaseless task which his Party membership imposed upon him. Such was his sacrifice to the Revolution. Such is the sacrifice of a Party that rules, not for the sake of personal loot and fame, like the rulers of capitalistic countries, but for the sake of assuming the hardest work, the most pitiless tasks in the service of the Collective. And if, in these days of struggle and privation, some of us may weaken in spirit, let us look up to the great All-Union Communist Party that leads us, that spares not its strength, its energy, its lives. Let us make the Red funeral of a Party hero an occasion of tribute to our leaders. Let all toilers of Leningrad join in the process that will escort Comrade Taganov to his last place of rest.

In an office of the G.P.U., a man with a smile that showed his gums, said to Pavel Syerov: “Well, he gave us a good opportunity for a lot of useful noise, after all. You making the opening speech?”

“Yeah,” said Syerov.

“Don’t forget his Red Army record and all that. Well, I hope this will shut them up, those damn fools, some of those old dotards of the 1905 vintage, who showed an inclination to talk too much about his pre-October Party card and other things, the Kovalensky case among other things.”

“Forget it,” said Pavel Syerov.

The toilers of Leningrad marched behind a red coffin.

Row after row, like walls, like the rungs of an endless ladder, they moved forward, swallowing Nevsky in the slow, rumbling, growing tide of bodies and banners, thousands of feet stepping in time, as if one gigantic pair of boots made Nevsky shudder in rhythm, from the statue of Alexander III to the columns of the Admiralty. Thousands of human bodies marched gravely, flaming banners raised high in a last salute.

Soldiers of the Red Army came as khaki ramparts, row after row of straight, husky shoulders, of boots firm and steady in the snow, of peaked caps with a red star on each forehead, and over them — a red banner with gold letters:

GLORY ETERNAL TO A FALLEN COMRADE

Workers of the Putilovsky factory came in gray, unbroken ranks, moving slowly under a red banner held high in sturdy fists:

HE CAME FROM THE WORKERS’ RANKS HE GAVE HIS LIFE TO THE WORKERS OF THE WORLD. THE PROLETARIAT THANKS ITS FALLEN FIGHTER.

Students of the Technological Institute followed, rows of young, earnest faces, of grave, clear eyes, of straight, taut bodies, of boys in black caps and girls in red kerchiefs, red as the banner that said:

THE STUDENTS OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL INSTITUTE ARE PROUD OF THEIR SACRIFICE TO THE CAUSE OF THE REVOLUTION

Members of his Party Collective, rows of black leather jackets, marched gravely, austere as monks, stately as warriors, their banner spread high and straight, without a wrinkle, a narrow red band with black letters, as sharp and plain as the men who carried it:

THE ALL-UNION COMMUNIST PARTY OFFERS ALL AND EVERY ONE OF ITS LIVES TO THE SERVICE OF THE WORLD REVOLUTION

Every factory of Petrograd, every club, every office, every Union, every small, forgotten Cell rolled in a single stream, gray, black and red, through a single artery of the great city, three miles of caps and red kerchiefs and feet crunching snow and banners like red gashes in the mist. And the gray walls of Nevsky were like the sides of a huge canal where human waves played a funeral dirge on a snow hard as granite.

It was cold; a piercing, motionless cold hung over the city, heavy as a mist that cut into the walls, into the cracks of sealed windows, into the bones and skins under the heavy clothes. The sky was torn into gray layers of rags, and clouds were smeared on, like patches of ink badly blotted, with a paler ink under them, and a faded ink beneath, and then a water turbid with soap suds, under which no blue could ever have existed. Smoke rose from old chimneys, gray as the clouds, as if that smoke had spread over the city, or the clouds had belched gray coils into the chimneys and the houses were spitting them back, and the smoke made the houses seem unheated. Snowflakes fluttered down lazily, once in a while, to melt on indifferent, moving foreheads.

An open coffin was carried at the head of the procession.

The coffin was red. A banner of scarlet, regal velvet was draped over a still body; a white face lay motionless on a red pillow, a clear, sharp profile swimming slowly past the gray walls, black strands of hair scattered on the red cloth, black strands of hair hiding a dark little hole on the right temple. The face was calm. Snowflakes did not melt on the still, white forehead.

Four honorary pall-bearers, his best Party comrades, carried the coffin on their shoulders. Four bowed heads were bared to the cold. The coffin seemed very red between the blond hair of Pavel Syerov and the black curls of Victor Dunaev.

A military band followed the coffin. The big brass tubes were trimmed with bows of black crêpe. The band played “You fell as a victim.”

Many years ago, in secret cellars hidden from the eyes of the Czar’s gendarmes, on the frozen roads of Siberian prison camps, a song had been born to the memory of those who had fallen in the fight for freedom. It was sung in muffled, breathless whispers to the clanking of chains, in honor of nameless heroes. It traveled down dark sidelanes; it had no author, and no copy of it had ever been printed. The Revolution brought it into every music store window and into the roar of every band that followed a Communist to his grave. The Revolution brought the “Internationale” to its living and “You fell as a victim” to its dead. It became the official funeral dirge of the new republic.

The toilers of Leningrad sang solemnly, marching behind the open red coffin:

“You fell as a victim

In our fateful fight,

A victim of endless devotion.

You gave all you had to the people you loved,

Your honor, your life and your freedom.”

The music began with the majesty of that hopelessness which is beyond the need of hope. It mounted to an ecstatic cry, which was not joy nor sorrow, but a military salute. It fell, breaking into a pitiless tenderness, the reverent tenderness that honors a warrior without tears. It was a resonant smile of sorrow.

And feet marched in the snow, and the brass tubes thundered, and brass cymbals pounded each step into the earth, and gray ranks unrolled upon gray ranks, and scarlet banners swayed to the grandeur of the song in a solemn farewell.

“The tyrant shall fall and the people shall rise,

Sublime, almighty, unchained!

So farewell, our brother,

You’ve gallantly made

Your noble and valiant journey!”

Far beyond the rows of soldiers and students and workers, in the ranks of nameless stragglers that carried no banners, a girl walked alone, her unblinking eyes fixed ahead, even though she was too far away to see the red coffin. Her hands hung limply by her sides; above the heavy woolen mittens, her wrists were bare to the cold, frozen to a dark, purplish red. Her face had no expression; her eyes had: they seemed astonished.

Those marching around her paid no attention to her. But at the start of the demonstration, someone had noticed her. Comrade Sonia, leading a detachment of women workers from the Zhenotdel, had hurried past to take her place at the head of the procession, where she had to carry a banner; Comrade Sonia had stopped short and chuckled aloud: “Really, Comrade Argounova, you — here? I should think you’d be the one person to stay away!”

Kira Argounova had not answered.

Some women in red kerchiefs had passed by. One had pointed at her and whispered something, eagerly, furtively, to her comrades; someone had giggled.

Kira walked slowly, looking ahead. Those around her sang “You fell as a victim.” She did not sing.

A red banner said:

PROLETARIANS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!

A freckled woman with strands of rusty hair under a man’s cap, whispered to her neighbor: “Mashka, did you get the buckwheat at the co-operative this week?”

“No. They giving any?”

“Yeah. Two pounds per card. Better get it before it’s all gone.”

A red banner said:

FORWARD INTO THE SOCIALISTIC FUTURE UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF LENIN’S PARTY!

A woman hissed through blackened stumps of teeth: “Oh, hell! They would choose a cold day like this to make us march in another one of their cursed parades!”

“You fell a-a-as a vic-ti-i-im

Inour fate — fullfight,

A vic-tim of e-end-less de-vo-o-otion....”

“... stood in line for two hours yesterday, but best onions you ever hope to see....”

“Dounka, don’t miss the sunflower-seed oil at the co-operative....”

“If they don’t get shot by someone, they shoot themselves — just to make us walk....”

“Yougave a-a-all you had fo-o-or the people you loved ...”

A red banner said:

TIGHTEN THE BONDS OF CLASS SOLIDARITY UNDER THE STANDARD OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY!

“God! I left soup cooking on the Primus. It will boil all over the house....”

“Stop scratching, comrade.”

“Your ho-nor, yourli-ife and your free-ee-ee-edom....”

“Comrade, stop chewing sunflower seeds. It’s disrespectful....”

“It’s like this, Praskovia: you peel the onions and add a dash of flour, just any flour you can get, and then a dash of linseed oil and ...”

“What do they have to commit suicide about?”

A red banner said:

THE COMMUNIST PARTY SPARES NO VICTIMS IN ITS FIGHT FOR THE FREEDOM OF MANKIND

“There’s a little closet under the back stairs and some straw and no one can hear us in there.... My husband? The poor sap will never get wise....”

“Let the millet soak for a coupla hours before cooking....”

“God! It’s the seventh month, it is, and you can’t expect me to have a figure like a match stick, and here I have to walk like this.... Yeah, it’s my fifth one....”

“Thety-rant shall fall and thepeo-ple shallrise, Sublime, al-mighty, unchai-ai-ai-ned! ...”

“Lord Jesus Christ! I bet the newspaper’s grown fast to my skin. Ever use newspapers to keep your feet warm, comrade? Under the socks?”

“Makes your feet stink.”

“Cover your mouth when you yawn like that, comrade.”

“Damn those demonstrations! Who the hell was he, anyway?”

“Yougave a-a-all youhad fo-o-or thepeople you loved ...”

The Field of Victims of the Revolution was a huge square in the heart of the city, on the shore of the Neva, a vast, white desert, stretching for half a mile, like a bald spot on the scalp of Petrograd. The iron lances of the Summer Garden fence stood on guard at one side of the Field, and behind them lay the white desolation of a park with bare trees that seemed made of black iron like the lances.

Before the revolution, it had been called the Field of Mars and long ranks of gray uniforms had crossed it in military drills. The revolution had erected a small square of rose granite slabs, a little island lost in the center of the Field. Under the slabs were buried the first victims fallen in the streets of Petrograd in February of 1917. The days since February of 1917 had added more granite slabs to the little island. The names carved on the granite had belonged to those whose death had been the occasion for a demonstration, whose last reward had been the honor of the title of “The Revolution’s Victim.”

Pavel Syerov mounted a block of red granite over a red coffin. His slender figure in a tight, new leather jacket and breeches and tall military boots stood sharply, proudly against the gray sky, his blond hair waved in the wind, and his arms rose solemnly, in blessing and exhortation, over a motionless sea of heads and banners.

“Comrades!” Pavel Syerov’s voice thundered over the solemn silence of thousands. “We are here, united by a common sorrow, by the common duty of paying a last tribute to a fallen hero. We have lost a great man. We have lost a great fighter. Perhaps, I may be permitted to say that I feel the loss more keenly than many who join me in honoring his death, but who knew him not while he lived. I was one of his closest friends — and it was a privilege which I must share with all of you. Andrei Taganov was not a famous man, but he bore, proudly and gallantly, one title: that of a Communist. He came from the toilers’ ranks. His childhood was spent at the proletarian work bench. He and I, we grew up together, and together we shared the long years of toil in the Putilovsky factory. We joined the Party together, long before the Revolution, in those dark days when a Party card was a ticket to Siberia or a mark for the Czar’s hangman’s noose. Side by side, Comrade Taganov and I fought in the streets of this city in the glorious days of October, 1917. Side by side, we fought in the ranks of the Red Army. And in the years of peace and reconstruction that followed our victory, the years which are harder and, perhaps, more heroic than any warfare, he did more than his share of the silent, modest, self-sacrificing work which your Party carries on for you, toilers of the U.S.S.R.! He fell as a victim to that work. But our sorrow at his death shall also be joy at his achievement. He is dead, but his work, our work, goes on. The individual may fall, but the Collective lives forever. Under the guidance of the Soviets, under the leadership of the great All-Union Communist Party, we are marching into a radiant tomorrow when the honest toil of free toilers will rule the world! Then labor will no longer be slavery, as it is in capitalistic countries, but a free and happy duty to that which is greater than our petty concerns, greater than our petty sorrows, greater than our very lives — the eternal Collective of a Proletarian Society! Our glorious dead shall be remembered forever, but we are marching on. Andrei Taganov is dead, but we remain. Life and victory are ours. Ours is the future!”

The applause rolled like a dull thunder to the houses of the city far away, to the snow of the Summer Garden, and red banners waved in the roar of clapping hands, rising to the gray sky. When the hands dropped and the heads turned their eyes to the red granite slab, Comrade Syerov was gone — and against the gray sky stood the trim, proud, resolute figure of Victor Dunaev, black curls waving in the wind, eyes sparkling, mouth open wide over lustrous white teeth, throwing into the silence the clear, ringing notes of a young, powerful voice:

“Comrade workers! Thousands of us are gathered here to honor one man. But one man means nothing in the face of the mighty Proletarian Collective, no matter how worthy his achievements. We would not be here, if that man were not more than a single individual, if he were not a symbol of something greater, which we are gathered here to honor. This is not a funeral, comrades, but a birthday party! We are not celebrating the death of a comrade, but the birth of a new humanity. Of that new humanity, he was one of the first, but not the last. The Soviets, comrades, are creating a new race of men. That new race terrifies the old world, for it brings death to all its outworn standards. What, then, are the standards of our new humanity? The first and basic one is that we have lost a word from our language, the most dangerous, the most insidious, the most evil of human words: the word ‘I.’ We have outgrown it. ‘We’ is the slogan of the future. The Collective stands in our hearts where the old monster — ‘self ’ — had stood. We have risen beyond the worship of the pocketbook, of personal power and personal vanity. We do not long for gold coins and gold medals. Our only badge of honor is the honor of serving the Collective. Our only aim is the honest toil which profits not one, but all. What is the lesson we are to learn here today and to teach our enemies beyond the borders? The lesson of a Party comrade dying for the Collective. The lesson of a Party that rules but to sacrifice itself to those it rules. Look at the world around you, comrades! Look at the fat, slobbering ministers of the capitalistic countries, who fight and stab one another in the back in their bloody scramble for power! Then look at those who rule you, who consecrate their lives to the unselfish service of the Collective, who carry the tremendous responsibility of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat! If you do, you will understand me when I say that the All-Union Communistic Party is the only honest, fearless, idealistic body of men in the politics of the world today!”

The applause thundered as if the old cannons of the Peter-Paul Fortress across the river had been fired all at once. And it thundered again when Victor’s black curls disappeared in the crowd, and the straight, stubby mane of Comrade Sonia waved high in the air, while she roared with all the power of her broad chest about the new duties of the new woman of the Proletariat. Then another face rose over the crowd, a thin, consumptive, unshaved face that wore glasses and opened a pale mouth wide, coughing words which no one could hear. Then another mouth spoke, and it could be heard far beyond the crowd, a mouth that bellowed sonorously through a thick, black beard. A freckled boy from the Communist Union of Youth spoke, stuttering, scratching his head. A tall spinster in a crumpled, old-fashioned hat spoke ferociously, opening her small mouth as if she were at the dentist’s, shaking her thin finger at the crowd as at a school-room of disobedient pupils. A tall sailor spoke, his fists on his hips, and those in the back rows laughed occasionally when they heard the front rows laughing, even though the words did not reach them.

Thousands stood, fidgeting nervously, knocking their heels together to keep them warm, burying their hands in their armpits, in their sleeves, in their fur lapels, breathing little wet icicles on the old scarfs high under their noses. They took turns in holding the red banners, and those who held them pressed the poles tightly to their sides with their elbows, blowing on their frozen fingers. A few sneaked away, hurrying furtively down side streets.

Kira Argounova stood without moving and listened attentively. She listened to every word. Her eyes held a question she hoped the world could answer.

Over the vast field, the sky was turning a dark, dirty, grayish blue, and in a window far away the first little yellow spark of light twinkled, greeting the early winter dusk. The voice of the last speaker had died, smothered in the thick mist of frost which one could not see, but felt flowing down heavily from the darkness above. The red coffin had been closed and had disappeared in the earth, and the grave had been filled, and a slab of red granite had risen over it. And suddenly the gray sea had shuddered, and the ranks were broken, and dark streams of men rolled swiftly into side streets, as if a dam had burst open. And far away, dying in the frozen twilight, the military band struck up the “Internationale,” the song of the living, like the marching of thousands of feet, measured and steady, like soldiers’ feet drumming a song upon the earth.

Then Kira Argounova walked slowly toward the new grave.

The Field was empty. The sky was descending, locking a frozen blue vault over the city. Through a crack in the vault, a single steely dot twinkled feebly. The houses far away were not houses any longer but flat, broken shadows of thin black paper pasted in a narrow strip against a brownish glow that had been red. Little lights trembled in little holes pierced through the paper. The Field was not in a city. The empty, quiet silence of a countryside hung over a white desert where whirls of snow rose in the wind, melting into thin white powder.

A lonely little figure stood over a granite tombstone.

Snowflakes fluttered lazily down on her bowed head, on the lashes of her eyes. Her lashes glistened with snowflakes, but without tears. She looked at the words cut into the red granite:

GLORY ETERNAL TO THE VICTIMS OF THE REVOLUTION

ANDREI TAGANOV

1896-1925

She wondered whether she had killed him, or the revolution had, or both.

XVI

LEO SAT ALONE BY THE FIREPLACE, SMOKING. A cigarette hung limply in his hand, then slipped out of his fingers; he did not notice it. He took another cigarette and held it unlighted for a long time, not noticing it. Then he glanced around for a match, and could not find it, even though the box lay on the arm of his chair. Then he picked up the match box and stared at it, puzzled, for he had forgotten what he wanted.

He had spoken little in the past two weeks. He had kissed Kira violently, once in a while, too violently, and she had felt his effort, and she had avoided his lips and his arms.

He had left home often and she had never asked him where he went. He had been drinking too often and too much, and she had not said whether she noticed it. When they had been alone together, they had sat silently, and the silence had spoken to her, louder than any words, of something which was an end. He had been spending the last of their money and she had not questioned him about the future. She had not questioned him about anything, for she had been afraid of the answer she knew: that her fight was lost.

When Kira came home from the funeral, Leo did not rise to his feet, but sat by the fireplace, not moving. He looked at her with a slow, curious, heavy glance between heavy eyelids.

Silently, she took off her coat and hung it in her wardrobe. She was taking off her hat when a sound made her turn: Leo was laughing; it was a hard, bitter, brutal laughter.

She looked at him, her eyes wide: “Leo, what’s the matter?”

He asked her fiercely: “Don’t you know?”

She shook her head.

“Well, then,” he asked, “do you want to know how much I know?”

“How much ... you know ... about what, Leo?”

“I don’t suppose this is a good time to tell you, is it? Right after your lover’s funeral?”

“My ...”

He rose and approached her, and stood, his hands in his pockets, looking down at her with the arrogantly contemptuous look she worshipped, with the scornful, drooping smile; but his arched lips moved slowly to form three words: “You little bitch!”

She stood straight, without moving, her face white. “Leo ...”

“Shut up! I don’t want to hear a sound out of you! You rotten little ... I wouldn’t mind it, if you were like the rest of us! But you, with your saintly airs, with your heroic speeches, trying to make me walk straight, while you were ... you were rolling under the first Communist bum who took the trouble to push you!”

“Leo, who ...”

“Shut up! ... No! I’ll give you a chance to speak. I’ll give you a chance to answer just one word. Were you Taganov’s mistress? Were you? Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

“All the time I was away?”

“Yes.”

“And all the time since I came back?”

“Yes. What else did they tell you, Leo?”

“What else did you want them to tell me?”

“Nothing.”

He looked at her; his eyes were suddenly cold, clear, weary.

“Who told you, Leo?”

“A friend of yours. Of his. Our dear comrade, Pavel Syerov. He dropped in on his way back from the funeral. He just wanted to congratulate me on the loss of my rival.”

“Was it ... was it a hard blow to you, Leo?”

“It was the best piece of news I’d heard since the revolution. We shook hands and had a drink together, Comrade Syerov and I. Drank to you and your lover, and any other lovers you may have. Because, you see, that sets me free.”

“Free ... from what, Leo?”

“From a little fool who was my last hold on self-esteem! A little fool I was afraid to face, afraid to hurt! Really, you know, it’s funny. You and your Communist hero. I thought he had lied, making a great sacrifice by saving me for you. And he was just tired of you, he probably wanted to get you off his hands, for some other whore. So much for the sublime in the human race.”

“Leo, we don’t have to discuss him, do we?”

“Still love him?”

“That doesn’t make any difference to you — now — does it?”

“None. None whatever. I won’t even ask whether you had ever loved me. That, too, doesn’t make any difference. I’d rather think you hadn’t. That will make it easier for the future.”

“The future, Leo?”

“Well, what did you plan it to be?”

“I ...”

“Oh, I know! Get a respectable Soviet job and rot over a Primus and a ration card, and keep holy something in your fool imagination — your spirit or soul or honor — something that never existed, that shouldn’t exist, that is the worst of all curses if it ever did exist! Well, I’m through with it. If it’s murder — well — I don’t see any blood. But I’m going to have champagne, and white bread, and silk shirts, and limousines, and no thoughts of any kind, and long live the Dictatorship of the Proletariat!”

“Leo ... what ... are you going to do?”

“I’m going away.”

“Where?”

“Sit down.”

He sat down at the table. His one hand lay in the circle of light under the lamp, and she noticed how still and white it was, with a net of blue veins that did not seem alive. She stood, watching it, until one finger moved. Then she sat down. Her face was expressionless. Her eyes were a little wide. He noticed her lashes — little needles of shadow on her cheeks — and the lashes were dry.

“Citizen Morozov,” said Leo, “has left town.”

“Well?”

“He’s left Tonia — he wants no connections that could be investigated. But he’s left her a nice little sum of money — oh, quite nice. She’s going for a rest and vacation in the Caucasus. She has asked me to go with her. I’ve accepted the job. Leo Kovalensky, the great gigolo of the U.S.S.R.!”

“Leo!”

She stood before him — and he saw terror in her eyes, such naked, raw terror that he opened his mouth, but could not laugh.

“Leo ... not that!”

“She’s an old bitch. I know. I like it better that way. She has the money and she wants me. Just a business deal.”

“Leo ... you ... like a ...”

“Don’t bother about the names. You can’t think of any as good as the ones I’ve thought of myself.”

He noticed that the folds of her dress were shivering and that her hands were flung back unnaturally, as if leaning on space, and he asked, rising: “You’re not going to be fool enough to faint, are you?”

She said, drawing her shoulders together: “No, of course not.... Sit down.... I’m all right....”

She sat on the edge of the table, her hands clutching it tightly, and she looked at him. His eyes were dead and she turned away, for she felt that those eyes should be closed. She whispered: “Leo ... if you had been killed in the G.P.U.... or if you had sold yourself to some magnificent woman, a foreigner, young and fresh and ...”

“I wouldn’t sell myself to a magnificent woman, young and fresh. I couldn’t. Not yet. In a year — I probably will.”

He rose and looked at her and laughed softly, indifferently: “Really, you know, don’t you think it’s not for you to express any depths of moral indignation? And since we both are what we are, would you mind telling me just why you kept me on while you had him? Just liked to sleep with me, like all the other females? Or was it my money and his position?”

Then she rose, and stood very straight, very still, and asked: “Leo, when did you tell her that you’d go with her?”

“Three days ago.”

“Before you knew anything about Andrei and me?”

“Yes.”

“While you still thought that I loved you?”

“Yes.”

“And that made no difference to you?”

“No.”

“If Syerov had not come here today, you’d still go with her?”

“Yes. Only then I’d have to face the problem of telling you. He spared me that. That’s why I was glad to hear it. Now we can say good-bye without any unnecessary scenes.”

“Leo ... please listen carefully ... it’s very important ... please do me a last favor and answer this one question honestly, to the best of your knowledge: if you were to learn suddenly — it doesn’t matter how — but if you were to learn that I love you, that I’ve always loved you, that I’ve been loyal to you all these years — would you still go with her?”

“Yes.”

“And ... if you had to stay with me? If you learned something that ... that bound you to stay and ... and to struggle on — would you try it once more?”

“If I were bound to — well, who knows? I might do what your other lover did. That’s also a solution.”

“I see.”

“And why do you ask that? What is there to bind me?”

She looked straight at him, her face raised to his, and her hair fell back off a very white forehead, and only her lips moved as she answered with the greatest calm of her life: “Nothing, Leo.”

He sat down again and clasped his hands and stretched them out, shrugging: “Well, that’s that. Really, I still think you’re wonderful. I was afraid of hysterics and a lot of noise. It’s ended as it should have ended.... I’m leaving in three days. Until then — I can move out of here, if you want me to.”

“No. I’d rather go. Tonight.”

“Why tonight?”

“I’d rather. I can share Lydia’s room, for a while.”

“I haven’t much money left, but what there is, I want you to ...”

“No.”

“But ...”

“Please, don’t. I’ll take my clothes. That’s all I need.”

She was packing a suitcase, her back turned to him, when he asked suddenly: “Aren’t you going to say anything? Have you nothing to say?”

She turned and looked at him calmly, and answered: “Only this, Leo: it was I against a hundred and fifty million people. I lost.”

When she was ready to go, he rose and asked suddenly, involuntarily: “Kira ... you loved me, once, didn’t you?”

She answered: “When a person dies, one does not stop loving him, does one?”

“Do you mean Taganov or ... me?”

“Does it make any difference, Leo?”

“No. May I help you to carry the suitcase downstairs?”

“No, thank you. It’s not heavy. Good-bye, Leo.”

He took her hand, and his face moved toward hers, but she shook her head, and he said only: “Good-bye, Kira.”

She walked out into the street, leaning slightly to her left, her right arm pulled down by the weight of the suitcase. A frozen fog hung like cotton over the street, and a lamp post made a sickly, yellow blot spilled in the fog. She straightened her shoulders and walked slowly, and the white earth cracked under her feet, and the line of her chin was parallel with the earth, and the line of her glance parallel with her chin.

To her family, three silent, startled faces, Kira explained quietly and Galina Petrovna gasped: “But what happened to ...”

“Nothing. We’re just tired of each other.”

“My poor, dear child! I ...”

“Please don’t worry about me, Mother. If you’ll forgive me the inconvenience, Lydia, it will be only for a little while. I couldn’t have found another room for just a few weeks.”

“Why certainly! Why, I’ll be only too glad to have you, Kira, after all you’ve done for us. But why for a few weeks? Where are you going after that?”

She answered and her voice had the intensity of a maniac’s:

“Abroad.”

On the following morning, Citizen Kira Argounova filed an application for a foreign passport. She had several weeks to wait for an answer.

Galina Petrovna moaned: “It’s insanity, Kira! Sheer insanity! In the first place, they won’t give it to you. You have no reasons to show why you want to go abroad, and with your father’s social past and all.... And even if you do get the passport — then what? No foreign country will admit a Russian and I can’t say that I blame them. And if they admit you — what are you going to do? Have you thought of that?”

“No,” said Kira.

“You have no money. You have no profession. How are you going to live?”

“I don’t know.”

“What will happen to you?”

“I don’t care.”

“But why are you doing it?”

“I want to get out.”

“But you’ll be all alone, lost in a wide world, with not a ...”

“I want to get out.”

“... with not a single friend to help you, with no aim, no future, no ...”

“I want to get out.”

On the evening of his departure, Leo came to say good-bye. Lydia left them alone in her room.

Leo said: “I couldn’t go, Kira, after parting as we did. I wanted to say good-bye and ... Unless you’d rather ...”

She said: “No. I’m glad you came.”

“I wanted to apologize for some of the things I said to you. I had no right to say them. It’s not up to me to blame you. Will you forgive me?”

“It’s all right, Leo. I have nothing to forgive.”

“I wanted to tell you that ... that ... Well, no, there’s nothing to tell you. Only that ... we have a great deal to ... remember, haven’t we?”

“Yes, Leo.”

“You’ll be better off without me.”

“Don’t worry about me, Leo.”

“I’ll be back in Petrograd. We’ll meet again. We’ll meet when years have passed, and years make such a difference, don’t they?”

“Yes, Leo.”

“Then we won’t have to be so serious any more. It will be strange to look back, won’t it? We’ll meet again, Kira. I’ll be back.”

“If you’re still alive — and if you don’t forget.”

It was as if she had kicked a dead animal in the road and saw it jerking in a last convulsion. He whispered: “Kira ... don’t ...”

But she knew it was only a last convulsion and she said: “I won’t.”

He kissed her and her lips were soft and tender and yielding to his. Then he went.

She had several weeks to wait.

In the evenings, Alexander Dimitrievitch came home from work and shook snow off his galoshes in the lobby, and wiped them carefully with a special rag, for the galoshes were new and expensive.

After dinner, when he had no meeting to attend, he sat in a corner with an unpainted wooden screen frame and worked patiently, pasting match box labels on the frame. He collected the labels and guarded them jealously in a locked box. At night, he spread them cautiously on the table, and moved them slowly into patterns, trying out color combinations. He had a whole panel completed, and he muttered, squinting at it appraisingly: “It’s a beauty. A beauty. I bet no one in Petrograd has anything like it. What do you think, Kira, shall I use two yellow ones and a green one in this corner, or just three yellows?”

She answered quietly: “The green one will be nice, Father.”

Galina Petrovna thundered in, at night, and flung a heavy brief case on a chair in the lobby. She had had a telephone installed, and she tore the receiver off the hook and spoke hurriedly, still removing her gloves, unbuttoning her coat: “Comrade Fedorov? ... Comrade Argounova speaking. I have an idea for that number in the Living Newspaper, for our next Club show.... Now when we present Lord Chamberlain crushing the British Proletariat, we’ll have one of the pupils, a good husky one, wearing a red blouse, lie down on the floor and we’ll put a table on him — oh, just the front legs — and we’ll have the fat one, playing Lord Chamberlain, in a high silk hat, sit at the table and eat steak.... Oh, it doesn’t have to be a real steak, just papier-mâché....”

Galina Petrovna ate her dinner hurriedly, reading the evening paper. She jumped up, looking at the clock, before she had finished, dabbed a smear of powder on her nose and, seizing her brief case, rushed out again to a Council meeting. On the rare evenings when she stayed at home, she spread books and newspaper clippings over the dining-room table, and sat writing a thesis for her Marxist Club. She asked, raising her head, blinking absent-mindedly: “Kira, do you happen to know, the Paris Commune, what year was that?”

“Eighteen seventy-one, Mother,” Kira answered quietly.

Lydia worked at night. In the daytime, she practiced the “Internationale” and “You fell as a victim” and the Red Cavalry song on her old grand piano that had not been tuned for over a year. When she was asked to play the old classics she loved, she refused flatly, her mouth set in a thin, foolish, stubborn line. But once in a while, she sat down at the piano suddenly and played for hours, fiercely, violently, without stopping between pieces; she played Chopin and Bach and Tchaikovsky, and when her fingers were numb she cried, sobbing aloud in broken hiccoughs, senselessly, monotonously, like a child. Galina Petrovna paid no attention to it, saying: “Just another one of Lydia’s fits.”

Kira was lying on her mattress on the floor, when Lydia came home from work. Lydia took a long time to undress and a longer time to whisper endless prayers before the ikons in her corner. Some evenings, she came over to Kira and sat down on the mattress, and shivering in the darkness, in her long white nightgown, her hair falling in a thick braid down her back, whispered confidentially, a ray of the street lamp beyond the window falling on her tired face with swollen eyes and dry little wrinkles in the corners of the mouth, on her dry, knotty hands that did not look young any longer: “I had a vision again, Kira, a call from above. Truly, a prophetic vision, and the voice told me that salvation shall not be long in coming. It is the end of the world and the reign of the Anti-Christ. But Judgment Day is approaching. I know. It has been revealed to me.”

She whispered feverishly, she expected nothing but a peal of laughter from her sister, she was not looking at Kira, she was not certain whether Kira heard it; but she had to talk and she had to think that some human ears were listening.

“There is an old man, Kira, God’s wanderer. I’ve been to see him. Please don’t mention this to anyone, or they’ll fire me from the Club. He is the Chosen One of the Lord and he knows. He says it has been predicted in the Scriptures. We are punished for our sins, as Sodom and Gomorrah were punished. But hardships and sorrows are only a trial for the soul of the righteous. Only through suffering and long-bearing patience shall we become worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Kira said quietly: “I won’t tell anyone, Lydia. And now you’d better go to bed, because you’re tired and it’s so cold here.”

In the daytime, Kira led excursions through the Museum of the Revolution. In the evening, she sat in the dining room and read old books. She spoke seldom. When anyone addressed her, she answered evenly, quietly. Her voice seemed frozen on a single note. Galina Petrovna wished, uncomfortably, to see her angry, at least once; she did not see it. One evening, when Lydia dropped a vase in the silence of the dining room, and it broke with a crash, and Galina Petrovna jumped up with a startled little scream, and Alexander Dimitrievitch shuddered, blinking — Kira raised her head slowly, as if nothing had happened.

But there was a flicker of life in her eyes when, on her way home from the Excursion Center, she stopped at the window of a foreign book store on Liteiny, and stood looking thoughtfully at the bright covers with gay, broken, foreign letters, with chorus girls kicking long, glistening legs, with columns and searchlights and long, black automobiles. There was a jerk of life in her fingers when, every evening, as methodically as a bookkeeper, with a dull little stub of a pencil, she crossed another date off an old calendar on the wall over her mattress.

The foreign passport was refused.

Kira received the news with a quiet indifference that frightened Galina Petrovna, who would have preferred a stormy outbreak.

“Listen, Kira,” said Galina Petrovna vehemently, slamming the door of her room to be left alone with her daughter, “let’s talk sense. If you have any insane ideas of ... of ... Now, I want you to know that I won’t permit it. After all, you’re my daughter, I have some say in the matter. You know what it means, if you attempt ... if you even dare to think of leaving the country illegally.”

“I’ve never mentioned that,” said Kira.

“No, you haven’t. But I know you. I know what you’re thinking. I know how far your foolish recklessness can ... Listen, it’s a hundred to one that you don’t get out. And you’ll be lucky if you’re just shot at the border. It will be worse if you’re caught and brought back. And if you’re lucky enough to draw the one chance and slip out, it’s a hundred to one that you’ll die in a blizzard in those forests around the border.”

“Mother, why discuss it?”

“Listen, I’ll keep you here if I have to chain you. After all, one can be allowed to be crazy just so far. What are you after? What’s wrong with this country? We don’t have any luxuries, that’s true, but you won’t get any over there, either. A chambermaid is all you can hope to be, there, if you’re lucky. This is the country for young people. I know your crazy stubbornness, but you’ll get over it. Look at me. I’ve adapted myself, at my age, and, really, I can’t say that I’m unhappy. You’re only a pup and you can’t make decisions to ruin your whole life before you’ve even started it. You’ll outgrow your foolish notions. There is a chance for everyone in this new country of ours.”

“Mother, I’m not arguing, am I? So let’s drop the subject.”

Kira returned home later than usual from her excursions. There were people she had to see in dark side streets, slipping furtively up dark stairs through unlighted doorways. There were bills to be slipped into stealthy hands and whispers to be heard from lips close to her ear. It would cost more than she could ever save to be smuggled out on a boat, she learned, and it would be more dangerous. She had a better chance if she tried it alone, on foot, across the Latvian border. She would need white clothes. People had done it, dressed all in white, crawling through the snow in the winter darkness. She sold her watch and paid for the name of the station and the village, and for a square inch of tissue paper with the map of the place where a crossing was possible. She sold the fur coat Leo had given her and paid for a forged permit to travel.

She sold her cigarette lighter, her silk stockings, her French perfume. She sold all her new shoes and her dresses. Vava Milovskaia came to buy the dresses. Vava waddled in, shuffling heavily in worn-out felt boots. Vava’s dress had a greasy patch across the chest, and her matted hair looked uncombed. Her face was puffed, a coarse white powder had dried in patches on her nose, and her eyes were encircled in heavy blue bags. When she took off her clothes, slowly, awkwardly, to try on the dresses, Lydia noticed the swelling at her once slender waistline.

“Vava, darling! What, already?” Lydia gasped.

“Yes,” said Vava indifferently, “I’m going to have a baby.”

“Oh, darling! Oh, congratulations!” Lydia clasped her hands.

“Yes,” said Vava, “I’m going to have a baby. I have to be careful about eating and I take a walk every day. When it’s born, we’re going to register it with the Pioneers.”

“Oh, no, Vava!”

“Oh, why not? Why not? It has to have a chance, doesn’t it? It has to go to school, and to the University, maybe. What do you want me to do? Bring it up as an outcast? ... Oh, what’s the difference? Who knows who’s right? ... I don’t know any more. I don’t care.”

“But, Vava, your child!”

“Lydia, what’s the use? ... I’ll get a job after it’s born, I’ll have to. Kolya is working. It will be the child of Soviet employees. Then, later, maybe they’ll admit it into the Communist Union of Youth.... Kira, that black velvet dress — it’s so lovely. It looks almost ... almost foreign. I know it’s too tight for me now ... but afterwards ... maybe I’ll get my figure back. They say you do.... Of course, you know, Kolya isn’t making very much, and I don’t want to take anything from Father, and ... But Father gave me a present for my birthday, fifty rubles, and I think I should ... I could never buy anything like it anywhere.”

She bought the velvet dress and two others.

To Galina Petrovna, Kira had explained: “I don’t need those dresses. I don’t go anywhere. And I don’t like to keep them.”

“Memories?” Galina Petrovna had asked.

“Yes,” Kira had said. “Memories.”

She did not have much money after everything was sold. She knew that she would need every ruble. She could not buy a white coat. But she had the white bear rug that she had bought from Vasili Ivanovitch long ago. She took it secretly to a tailor and ordered it made into a coat. The coat came out as a short jacket that did not reach down to her knees. She would need a white dress. She could not buy one. But she still had Galina Petrovna’s white lace wedding gown. When she was alone at home, she took her old felt boots into the kitchen and painted them white with lime. She bought a pair of white mittens and a white woolen scarf. She bought a ticket to a town far out of the way, far from the Latvian border.

When everything was ready, she sewed her little roll of money into the lining of the white fur jacket. She would need it there — if she crossed the border.

On a gray winter afternoon, she left the house when no one was at home. She did not say good-bye. She left no letter. She walked down the stairs and out into the street as if she were going to the corner store. She wore an old coat with a matted fur collar. She carried a small suitcase. The suitcase contained a white fur jacket, a wedding gown, a pair of boots, a pair of mittens, a scarf.

She walked to the station. A brownish mist hung over the roof tops, and men walked, bent to the wind, huddled, their hands in their armpits. A white frost glazed the posters, and the bronze cupolas of churches were dimmed in a silvery gray. The wind whirled little coils in the snow, and kerosene lamps stood in store windows, melting streaks on the frozen white panes.

“Kira,” a voice called softly on a corner.

She turned. It was Vasili Ivanovitch. He stood under a lamp post, hunched, the collar of his old coat raised to his red ears, an old scarf twisted around his neck, two leather straps slung over his shoulders, holding a tray of saccharine tubes.

“Good evening, Uncle Vasili.”

“Where are you going, Kira, with that suitcase?”

“How have you been, Uncle Vasili?”

“I’m all right, child. It may seem a strange business to find me in, I know, but it’s all right. Really, it’s not as bad as it looks. I don’t mind it at all. Why don’t you come to see us, sometimes, Kira?”

“I ...”

“It’s not a grand place, ours, and there’s another family in the same room, but we’re getting along. Acia will be glad to see you. We don’t have many visitors. Acia is a nice child.”

“Yes, Uncle Vasili.”

“It’s such a joy to watch her growing, day by day. She’s getting better at school, too. I help her with her lessons. I don’t mind standing here all day, because then I go home, and there she is. Everything isn’t lost, yet. I still have Acia’s future before me. Acia is a bright child. She’ll go far.”

“Yes, Uncle Vasili.”

“I read the papers, too, when I have time. There’s a lot going on in the world. One can wait, if one has faith and patience.”

“Uncle Vasili ... I’ll tell them ... over there ... where I’m going ... I’ll tell them about everything ... it’s like an S.O.S.... And maybe ... someone ... somewhere ... will understand....”

“Child, where are you going?”

“Will you sell me a tube of saccharine, Uncle Vasili?”

“Why, no, I won’t sell it to you. Take it, child, if you need it.”

“Certainly not. I was going to buy it anyway from someone else,” she lied. “Don’t you want me for a customer? It may bring you luck.”

“All right, child.”

“I’ll take this nice big one with the big crystals. Here you are.”

She slipped the coin into his hand and the tube of saccharine into her pocket.

“Well, good-bye, Uncle Vasili.”

“Good-bye, Kira.”

She walked away without looking back. She walked through the dusk, through gray and white streets, under grayish banners bending down from old walls, grayish banners that had been red. She walked through a wide square where the tramway lights twinkled, springing out of the mist. She walked up the frozen steps of the station, without looking back.

XVII

THE TRAIN WHEELS KNOCKED AS if an iron chain were jerked twice, then rumbled dully, clicking, then gave two sharp broken jerks again. The wheels tapped like an iron clock ticking swiftly, knocking off seconds and minutes and miles.

Kira Argounova sat on a wooden bench by the window. She had her suitcase on her lap and held it with both hands, her fingers spread wide apart. Her head leaned back against the wooden seat and trembled in a thin little shudder, like the dusty glass pane. Her lids drooped heavily over her eyes fixed on the window. She did not close her eyes. She sat for hours without moving, and her muscles did not feel the immobility, or she did not feel her muscles any longer.

Beyond the window, nothing moved in the endless stretches of snow but black smears of telegraph poles, as if the train were suspended, stationary, between two slices of white and gray, and the wheels shrieked as if grating in a void. Once in a while, a white blot on a white desert, a blot with black edges shaped as fir branches, sprang up suddenly beyond the window and whirled like lightning across the pane.

When she remembered that she had not eaten for a long time, dimly uncertain whether it was hours or days, dimly conscious that she had to eat, even though she had forgotten hunger, she broke a chunk off a stale loaf of bread, which she had bought at the station, and chewed it slowly, with effort, her jaws moving monotonously, like a machine.

Around her, men left the car, when the train stopped at stations, and came back with steaming tea kettles. Once, someone put a cup into her hands, and she drank, the hot tin edge pressed to her lips.

Telegraph wires raced the train, crossing and parting and crossing again, thin black threads flying faster, faster than the shuddering car could follow.

In the daytime, the sky seemed lighter than the earth, a pale stretch of translucent gray over a heavy white. At night, the earth seemed lighter than the sky, a pale blue band under a black void.

She slept, sitting in her corner, her head on her arms, her arms on her suitcase. She tied the suitcase handle to her wrists, with a piece of string, at night. There were many moans around her about stolen luggage. She slept, her consciousness frozen on a single thought — of her suitcase. She awakened with a jolt whenever the motion of the car made the suitcase slip a little.

She had no thoughts left. She felt empty, clear and quiet, as if her body were only an image of her will, and her will — only an arrow, tense and hard, pointing at a border that had to be crossed. The only living thing she felt was the suitcase on her lap. Her will was knocking with the wheels of the train. Her heart beat there, under the floor.

She noticed dimly, once, on the bench before her, a woman pressed a cold white breast into a child’s lips. There still were people and there still were lives. She was not dead. She was only waiting to be born.

At night, she sat for hours, staring at the window. She could see nothing but the dim reflection of the candle-glow and benches and boarded walls shuddering in space, and the tousled shadow of her own head. There was no earth, no world beyond the window. Only far down, by the track, yellow squares of snow raced the train in the glow of the windows, and black clots whirled past as long, thin streaks. Once in a while, a spark of light pierced the darkness, somewhere far away, at the edge of the sky, and brought suddenly into existence a blue waste of snow beyond the glass. The light died and the earth went with it, leaving nothing in the window but the boarded walls and the candle and the tousled head.

There were stations where she had to get out, and stand at a ticket window on a windswept platform, and buy a new ticket, and wait for another train to come rushing through the dusk, a black engine spewing showers of red sparks.

Then there were wheels again, knocking under the floor, and another station, and another ticket, and another train. There were many days and nights, but she did not notice them. The men in khaki peaked caps, who examined the tickets, could not know that the girl in the old coat with the matted fur collar was going toward the Latvian border.

The last station, where she did not buy another ticket, was a dark little platform of rotted wooden planks, the last stop before the train’s terminal, before the border town.

It was getting dark. Brown wheel-tracks in the snow led far away into a glowing red patch. A few sleepy soldiers on the platform paid no attention to her. A large wicker hamper rattled as husky fists lowered it to the ground from a baggage car. At the station door, someone begged loudly for hot water. Lights twinkled in the car windows.

She walked away, clutching her suitcase, following the wheel tracks in the snow.

She walked, a slender black figure, leaning faintly backward, alone in a vast field rusty in the sunset.

It was dark when she saw the village houses ahead and yellow dots of candles in windows low over the ground. She knocked at a door. A man opened it; his hair and beard were a bushy blond tangle from which two bright eyes peered inquisitively. She slipped a bill into his hand and tried to explain as fast as she could, in a choked whisper. She did not have to explain much. Those in the house knew and understood.

Behind a low wooden partition, her feet in the straw where two pigs slept huddled together, she changed her clothes, while those in the room sat around a table, as if she were not present, five blond heads, one of them in a blue kerchief. Wooden spoons knocked in the wooden bowls on the table, and the sound of another spoon came from the shelf of a brick stove in the corner, where a gray head bent, sighing, over a wooden bowl. A candle stood on the table, and three little red tongues flickered before a bronze triangle of ikons in a corner, little glimmers of red in the bronze halos.

She put on the white boots and took off her dress; her naked arms shuddered a little, even though the room was hot and stuffy. She put on the white wedding gown, and its long train rustled in the straw, and a pig opened one slit of an eye. She lifted the train and pinned it carefully to her waistline, with big safety-pins. She wound the white scarf tightly about her hair, and put on the white fur jacket. She felt cautiously the little lump in the lining over her left breast, where she had sewn the bills; it was the last and only weapon she would need.

When she approached the table, the blond giant said, his voice expressionless: “Better wait for an hour or so, till the moon sets. The clouds ain’t so steady.”

He moved, making room for her on the bench, pointing to it silently, imperatively. She raised the lace dress, stepped over the bench and sat down. She took off the jacket and held it over her arm, pressed tightly to her body. Two pairs of feminine eyes stared at her high lace collar, and the girl in the blue kerchief whispered something to the older woman, her eyes awed, incredulous.

Silently, the man put a steaming wooden bowl before the guest.

“No, thank you,” she said. “I’m not hungry.”

“Eat,” he ordered. “You’ll need it.”

She ate obediently a thick cabbage soup that smelled of hot lard.

The man said suddenly in the silence, without looking at her: “It’s pretty near a whole night’s walk.”

She nodded.

“Pretty young,” said the woman across the table, shaking her head, and sighed.

When she was ready to go, the man opened the door to a cold wind whining over an empty darkness, and muttered in his blond beard: “Walk as long as you can. When you see a guard — crawl.”

“Thank you,” she said, as the door closed.

Snow rose to her knees, and each step was like a fall forward, and she held her skirt high, clutched in her fist. Around her, a blue that did not seem blue, a color that was no color, that had never existed in the world she had known, stretched without end, and sometimes she thought she was standing alone, very tall, very high over a flat circle, and sometimes she thought the bluish whiteness was a huge wall closing in over her head.

The sky hung low, in grayish patches, and black patches, and streaks of a blue that one could never remember in the daytime; and blots of something which was not a color and not quite a light ray, flowed from nowhere, trickling once in a while among the clouds, and she bent her head not to see it.

There were no lights ahead; she knew that the lights behind her had long since vanished, even though she did not look back. She carried nothing: she had left her suitcase and her old clothes in the village; she would need nothing — there — ahead — but the little roll in the lining of her jacket, and she touched it cautiously once in a while.

Her knees hurt with the piercing pain of stretched sinews, as if she were climbing a long stairway. She watched the pain, a little curiously, like an outsider. Scalding needles pierced her cheeks, and they itched, and she scratched them once in a while with a white mitten, but it did not help.

She heard nothing but the rustle of the snow under her boots, and she tried to walk faster, not to listen beyond the sound of her feet, not to notice the slurred shadows of sounds hanging around her, floating from nowhere.

She knew she had been walking for hours, that which she had once called hours. There were no hours here; there were only steps, only legs rising and falling deep into the snow, and a snow that had no end. Or had it an end? That, really, did not matter. She did not have to think of that. She had to think only that she had to walk. She had to walk west. That was the only problem, that was the total of all the problems. Had she any problems? Had she any questions to be answered? If she had — they would be answered — there. She did not have to think. She had to get out. She would think — then — if there were thoughts to be faced. Only she had to get out. Only to get out.

In the white mittens, her fingers ached, her bones drawn tight, her joints squeezed as in a vise. She must be cold, she thought; she wondered dimly whether it was a very cold night.

Before her, the blue snow was luminous, the snow lighting the sky. There was nothing but a haze, ahead of her, where the earth was smeared into the clouds, and she was not sure whether the clouds were close to her face and she would knock against them, or many miles away.

She had left nothing behind. She was walking out of a void, a void white and unreal as that earth around her. She could not give up. She still had them — those two legs that could move — and something lost somewhere within her, that told them to move. She would not give up. She was alive; alive and alone in a desert which was not a living earth. She had to walk, because she was still alive. She had to get out.

Long spirals of snow rose in the wind, brushing the low sky, far ahead. She saw strips of a shiny black above her and specks of bright dust twinkling at her from between the clouds. She huddled tighter, hunching her shoulders; she did not want to be seen.

Something hurt in her waistline, as if each step jerked her spine forward, and something throbbed, rising up her back. She pressed her fingers to the roll in her jacket. She had to watch that. She could not lose it. She had to watch that and her legs. The rest did not matter.

She stopped short when she saw a tree, the long white pyramid of a giant fir, rising suddenly out of the snow, and she stood without breath, her knees bent, crouching like an animal, listening. She heard nothing. Nothing moved behind the low branches. She went on. She did not know how long she had waited.

She did not know whether she was moving forward. Perhaps she was only stamping her feet, up and down, on the same spot. Nothing changed in that white immensity around her. Would it ever change? She was like an ant crawling over a white table, a hard, bright, lustrous, enameled table. She threw her arms wide, suddenly feeling the space around her. She looked up at the sky. She looked, her head and shoulders thrown back. Those twinkling splinters above — they were endless worlds, people said. Wasn’t there room for her in the world? Who was moving her feet off the small space they held in that vast universe? Who were they and why were they doing it? She had forgotten. She had to get out.

Those legs were not hers any longer. They moved like a wheel, like levers, rising, bending, falling, up and down, down with a jerk that reverberated up to her scalp.

She felt, suddenly, that she was not tired, she had no pain, she was light and free, she was well, too well, she could walk like this through years to come. Then, a sudden jolt of pain shot through her shoulder blades, and she wavered, and she felt as if hours went by while a motionless leg rose, rose the space of an atom at a time and fell down again, cutting the snow, and she was walking again. She bent, her arms huddled over her stomach, drawing herself into a little ball, so that her legs would have less to carry.

Somewhere there was a border and it had to be crossed. She thought, suddenly, of a restaurant she had seen, for the flash of a second, in a German film. It had a sign over the door, with plain, thin letters, nickel-plated letters, insolent in their simplicity, on dull white glass — “Café Diggy-Daggy.” They had no signs like that in the country she was leaving. They had no pavements lustrous as a ball-room floor. She repeated senselessly, without hearing the sounds, as a charm, as a prayer: “Café Diggy-Daggy ... Ca ... fé ... Dig ... gy ... Dag ... gy ...” and she tried to walk in rhythm with the syllables.

She did not have to tell her legs to move any longer. She thought they were running. An instinct was driving her, the instinct of an animal, whipping her blindly into the battle of self-preservation.

She was whispering through frozen lips: “You’re a good soldier, Kira Argounova, you’re a good soldier....”

Ahead of her, the blue snow billowed dimly against the sky. The waves did not change as she came closer; they stood out, sharper, harder, low hills undulating in the darkness. White cones rose to the sky, with black edges of branches.

Then she saw a black figure. The figure was moving. It was moving in a straight line across the hills, across the horizon. She saw the legs, like scissors, opening and closing. She saw a small black spike on his shoulder, and it gleamed sharply, once, against the sky.

She fell down on her stomach. She felt, dimly, as through an anesthetic, snow biting the wrists under her sleeves, rolling into her boots. She lay still, her heart pounding against the snow.

Then she raised her head a little and crawled slowly forward, on her stomach. She stopped and lay still, watching the black figure in the distance, and crawled again, and stopped, and watched, and crawled again.

Citizen Ivan Ivanov was six feet tall. He had a wide mouth and a short nose, and when he was puzzled, he blinked, scratching his neck.

Citizen Ivan Ivanov was born in the year 1900, in a basement, in a side street of the town of Vitebsk. He was the ninth child of the family. At the age of six, he started in as apprentice to a shoemaker. The shoemaker beat him with leather suspenders and fed him buckwheat gruel. At the age of ten, he made his first pair of shoes, all by himself, and he wore them proudly down the street, the leather squeaking. That was the first day Citizen Ivan Ivanov remembered all through his life.

At the age of fifteen, he lured the neighborhood’s grocer’s daughter into a vacant lot and raped her. She was twelve years old, with a chest as flat as a boy’s, and she whined shrilly. He made her promise not to tell anyone, and he gave her fifteen kopeks and a pound of sugar candy. That was the second day he remembered.

At the age of sixteen, he made his first pair of military boots for a real general, and he polished them thoroughly, spitting on the flannel rag, and he delivered them to the general himself, who patted him on the shoulder and gave him a tip of a ruble. That was the third day he remembered.

There was a gay bunch of fellows around the shoemaker’s shop. They rose at dawn and they worked hard and their shirts stuck to their backs with sweat, but they had a good time at night. There was a saloon on the corner of the street, and they sang gay songs, their arms about one another’s shoulders. There was a house around the corner, where a wizened little man played the piano, and Ivan’s favorite was a fat blonde in a pink kimono; she was a foreigner called Gretchen. And those were the nights Citizen Ivan Ivanov remembered.

He served in the Red Army, and, shells roaring overhead, made bets on lice races with the soldiers in the bottom of the trench.

He was wounded and told he would die. He stared dully at the wall, for it did not make any difference.

He recovered and married a servant girl with round cheeks and round breasts, because he had gotten her in trouble. Their son was blond and husky, and they named him Ivan. They went to church on Sundays, and his wife cooked onions with roasted mutton, when they could get it. She raised her skirt high over her fat legs, and knelt, and scrubbed the white pine floor of their room. And she sent him to a public bath once every month. And Citizen Ivan Ivanov was happy.

Then he was transferred to the border patrols, and his wife went back to live with her parents in the village, and took their son with her.

Citizen Ivan Ivanov had never learned to read.

Citizen Ivan Ivanov was guarding the border of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics.

He walked slowly through the snow, his rifle on his shoulder, blowing at his frozen fingers, cursing the cold. He did not mind going down hill, but going up hill was hard, and he scrambled, groaning, to stand there alone on the summit, with the wind biting his nose, and not a living soul for miles around.

Then, Citizen Ivan Ivanov saw something moving in the snow, far away.

He was not sure it had moved. He peered into the darkness, but the wind raised whirls of snow dust over the plain and he thought he might have been mistaken; only it had seemed as if something had moved, which was not snow dust. He yelled, cupping his hands over his mouth: “Who goes there?”

Nothing answered. Nothing moved in the plain under the hill.

He yelled: “You’d better come out or I’ll shoot!”

There was no answer.

He hesitated, scratching his neck. He stared far out into the night. But he had to be safe.

Citizen Ivan Ivanov raised his rifle to his shoulder and fired.

A blue flame streaked through the darkness and a dull echo rolled in the distance, far away. There was no sound after the echo had died, no movement in the white plain under the hill.

Citizen Ivan Ivanov scratched his neck. He should go down there and investigate, he thought. But it was too far, and the snow was too deep, and the wind was too cold. He waved his hand and turned away. “Just a rabbit, most likely,” he muttered, descending the hill to continue his route.

Kira Argounova lay very still in the snow, on her stomach, her arms thrown forward, and only a lock of hair moved, falling from under the white scarf, and her eyes followed the black figure walking away across the hills, disappearing in the distance. She lay still for a long time, watching a red spot widening slowly under her in the snow.

She thought, clearly, sharply, in words she could almost hear: “Well, I’m shot. Well, that’s how it feels to be shot. It’s not so frightful, is it?”

She rose slowly to her knees. She took off a mitten and slipped her hand into her jacket to find the roll of bills over her left breast. She hoped the bullet had not gone through the bills. It hadn’t. The little hole in the jacket was just under them. And her fingers felt something hot and sticky.

It did not hurt much. It felt like a sharp little burn in her side, with less pain than in her tired legs. She tried to stand up. She swayed a little, but she could stand. There was a dark patch on her jacket and the fur was drawn into red, warm clusters. It did not bleed much; just a few drops she could feel slithering down her skin.

She could walk. She would keep her hand on it and it would not bleed. She was not far from the border now. Over there, beyond, she would have it bandaged. It was not serious and she could stand it. She had to go on.

She staggered forward and wondered at the weakness in her knees. She whispered to herself through lips that were turning blue: “Of course, you’re wounded and you’re a little weak. That’s to be expected. Nothing to worry about.”

Swaying, her shoulders drooping forward, her hand at her side, she went on, through the snow, stumbling, her knees meeting, faltering as if she were drunk. She watched little dark drops falling off the hem of her lace gown, slowly, once in a while. Then the drops stopped falling. She smiled.

She felt no pain. The last of her consciousness had gone into one will into two legs that were growing weaker and weaker. She had to go on. She had to get out. She had to get out.

She whispered to herself, as if the sound of her voice were a living fluid giving her strength: “You’re a good soldier, Kira Argounova, you’re a good soldier and now’s the time to prove it.... Now.... Just one effort.... One last effort.... It’s not so very bad yet, is it? ... You can make it.... Just walk.... Please, walk.... You have to get out ... get out ... get out ... get out ...”

She pressed her hand to the roll of bills in her jacket. She could not lose that. She had to watch that. She could not see things clearly any longer. She had to remember that.

Her head was drooping forward. She closed her eyes, leaving slits open between her lashes to watch her legs, her legs that should not stop.

She opened her eyes suddenly to find herself lying in the snow. She raised her head slowly, wondering, for she did not remember having fallen.

She must have fainted, she thought, wondering curiously how it felt to faint, for she did not remember.

It took a long time to rise. She noticed a red spot in the snow where she had fallen. She must have lain there for some time. She staggered forward, then stopped, some thought forming itself slowly in her dull eyes, and she came back and covered the red spot with snow, with her foot.

She went on, wondering dimly why the weather had become so hot and why the snow did not melt when it was so hot, so hot that she could hardly breathe, and what if the snow did melt? She would have to swim, then, well, she was a good swimmer and that would be easier than walking, for her legs could rest, then.

She went reeling forward. She did not know whether she was walking in the right direction. She had forgotten that she had to think of a direction. She remembered only that she had to walk.

She did not notice that the hill ended sharply on the edge of a ravine, and she fell and rolled down the white slope in a whirl of legs, arms and snow.

She could move nothing but one hand, at first, to rub the wet snow off her face, off her lips, off her frozen lashes. She lay huddled in a white heap on the bottom of a white gulch. The time it took to rise again seemed like hours, like years: just to draw her hands to her body, at first, palms down, to press her elbows to her body, turn her legs, push her feet out, then rise to her knees, leaning on tense, trembling arms, and breathe, with a breath like a knife inside, then rise a little further, leaning on one hand, then tear that hand, too, off the snow, and rise, and stand erect, panting.

She made a few steps. But she could not walk up the other side of the gulch. She fell and crawled up the hill on her hands and knees, digging her burning face into the snow to cool her cheeks.

She rose to her feet again on the top of the hill. She had lost her mittens. She felt something in the corners of her mouth and she rubbed her lips and looked at her fingers: her fingers were pink with froth.

She felt too hot. She tore the white scarf off her hair and threw it down into the gulch. The wind was a relief, blowing her hair back in a straight, shivering line.

She went on, raising her face to the wind.

She felt too hot and it was so difficult to breathe. She tore off her fur jacket and dropped it into the snow, and went on, without looking back.

In the sky, the clouds were rolling away in whirls of blue and gray and dark green. Ahead of her, above the snow, a pale line glowed, rising, and it was a transparent white, but above the snow it looked like a very pale green.

She pitched forward and jerked back again, brushing the hair out of her eyes, and faltered, and went on, a trembling, swaying, reeling, drunken figure in a long wedding gown of lace white as the snow around her.

The train was torn off her waistline and it dragged behind her, her legs getting tangled in the long lace. She staggered blindly, the wind waving her hair, her arms swinging, as if they, too, were loose in the wind. She leaned back and her breasts stood out under the white lace, and from under her left breast a little stream of red trickled down slowly, and long dark patches spread down to the train, and delicate flowers of lace were red on the white satin.

And suddenly her dry lips, caked and sealed with froth, opened again, and she called softly, one name, as a plea for help from over there, from across the border, as a caress, her voice tender and almost joyous:

“Leo! ...”

She repeated, louder and louder, without despair, as if the sound, that one sound in the world, were giving her life: “Leo! ... Leo! ... Leo! ...”

She was calling him, the Leo that could have been, that would have been had he lived there, where she was going, across the border. He was awaiting her there, and she had to go on. She had to walk. There, in that world, across the border, a life was waiting for her to which she had been faithful her every living hour, her only banner that had never been lowered, that she had held high and straight, a life she could not betray, she would not betray now by stopping while she was still living, a life she could still serve, by walking, by walking forward a little longer, just a little longer.

Then she heard a song, a tune not loud enough to be a human sound, a song as a last battle-march. And it was not a funeral dirge, it was not a hymn, it was not a prayer. It was a tune from an old operetta, the “Song of Broken Glass.”

Little notes of music trembled in hesitation, and burst, and rolled in quick, fine waves, like the thin, clear ringing of glass. Little notes leaped and exploded and laughed, laughed with a full, unconditional, consummate human joy.

She did not know whether she was singing. Perhaps she was only hearing the music somewhere.

But the music had been a promise; a promise at the dawn of her life. That which had been promised then, could not be denied to her now. She had to go on.

She went on, a fragile girl in the flowing, medieval gown of a priestess, red stains spreading on the white lace.

At dawn, she fell on the edge of the slope. She lay very still, for she knew that she could not rise again.

Far down, below her, an endless snow plain stretched into the sunrise. The sun had not come. A band of pink, pale and young, like the breath of a color, like the birth of a color, rose over the snow and glowed, trembling, flowing up into a pale blue, a blue immensity of sparks twinkling under a thin veil, like the faint, fading ghost of a lake in a summer sun, like the still surface of a lake with a sun drowned far in its depths. And the snow, at the rise of that liquid flame, seemed to quiver, breathing, glittering softly. Long bands stretched across the plain, shadows that seemed light itself, a heavier, bluer light with edges ready to burst into dancing fires.

A lonely little tree stood far away in the plain. It had no leaves. Its slim, rare twigs had gathered no snow. It stretched, tense with the life of a future spring, thin black branches, like arms, into the dawn rising over an endless earth where so much had been possible.

She lay on the edge of a hill and looked down at the sky. One hand, white and still, hung over the edge, and little red drops rolled slowly in the snow, down the slope.

She smiled. She knew she was dying. But it did not matter any longer. She had known something which no human words could ever tell and she knew it now. She had been awaiting it and she felt it, as if it had been, as if she had lived it. Life had been, if only because she had known it could be, and she felt it now as a hymn without sound, deep under the little hole that dripped red drops into the snow, deeper than that from which the red drops came. A moment or an eternity — did it matter? Life, undefeated, existed and could exist.

She smiled, her last smile, to so much that had been possible.