MIKHAIL BULGAKOV: THE WHITE GUARD

Nikolka gripped the window-catch and pressed his other hand against the pane as if to break it open, and flattened his nose against the glass.

Td like to go out there and find out what's going on . . .'

'Maybe; but it's no place for you right now . . .' said Elena anxiously. Her husband should have been home at the latest - the very latest - at three o'clock that afternoon, and now it was ten.

They went silently back into the dining-room. The guitar lay glumly silent. Nikolka went out to the kitchen and carried in the samovar, which hissed angrily and spat. The table was laid with cups that were pastel-colored inside and decorated outside with gilded caryatids. In their mother's day this had been the family's best tea-service for special occasions, but her children now used it for everyday. Despite the gunfire, the alarms and anxiety, the tablecloth was white and starched. This was thanks to Elena, who instinctively saw to such things, and to Anyuta who had grown up in the Turbin household. The hem of the tablecloth gleamed, andalthough it was December, in the tall, pillar-shaped matt glass vase stood a bunch of blue hortensias and two languorous roses to affirm the beauty and permanency of life - despite the fact that out there, on the roads leading into the City, lay the cunning enemy, poised to crush the beautiful snowbound City and grind the shattered remnants of peace and quiet into fragments beneath the heel of his boot. The flowers were a present from Elena's faithful admirer, Lieutenant Leonid Shervinsky of the Guards, a friend of the salesgirl at La Marquise, the famous confectioners, and a friend of the salesgirl at the florist's shop, Les Fleurs de Nice. In the shadow of the hortensias was a blue-patterned plate with a few slices of sausage, butter under a glass bell, lumps of sugar in the sugar-bowl and a long loaf of white bread. Everything one could want for a delicious supper if only the situation . . .

The teapot was covered by a bright woolen tea-cosy in the shape of a rooster, while the gleaming side of the samovar reflected the three distorted faces of the Turbins, making Nikolka's cheeks look as round and puffed as the face of Momus scribbled on the stove.

Elena looked miserable and her red curls hung lankly down.

Talberg and his trainload of the Hetman's money had gone astray somewhere, and the evening was ruined. Who knows what might have happened to him? The two brothers listlessly ate some slices of bread and sausage. A cold cup of tea and The Gentleman from San Francisco lay on the table in front of Elena. Misty and unseeing, her eyes stared at the words:

'. . . darkness, sea, storm.'

Elena was not reading.

Finally Nikolka could restrain himself no longer:

'Why is the gunfire so close, I'd like to know? I mean, they can't have . . .'

He broke off, his reflection in the samovar distorting as he moved. Pause. The hands of the clock crawled past the figure ten and moved on - tonk-tank - to a quarter past ten.

'They're firing because the Germans are swine', his elder brother barked unexpectedly.

Elena looked up at the clock and asked:

'Surely, surely they won't just leave us to our fate?' Her voice was miserable.

As if at by unspoken command the two brothers turned their heads and began telling lies.

'There's no news', said Nikolka and bit off a mouthful.

'What I said was purely, h'm . . . conjectural. Rumors.'

'No, it's not rumors', Elena countered firmly. 'That wasn't a rumor - it was true; I saw Shcheglova today and she said that two

German regiments had withdrawn from Borodyanka.'

'Rubbish.'

'Now just think,' Alexei began. 'Is it conceivable that the

Germans should let that scoundrel Petlyura come anywhere near the city? Is it? Personally I can't imagine how they could ever come to terms with him for one moment. Petlyura and the Germans - it's utterly absurd. They themselves regard him as nothing but a bandit. It's ridiculous.'

'I don't believe you. I know what these Germans are like by now. I've seen several of them wearing red arm-bands. The other day I saw a drunken German sergeant with a peasant woman - and she was drunk too.'

'What of it? There may be isolated cases of demoralisation even in the German army.'

'So you don't think Petlyura will break through?'

'H'm ... No, I don't think it's possible.'

'Absolument pas. Pour me another cup of tea, please. Don't worry. Maintain, as the saying goes, complete calm.'

'But where's Sergei, for God's sake? I'm certain that train has been attacked and . . .'

'Pure imagination. Look - that line is completely out of any possible danger.'

'But something might happen, mightn't it?'

'Oh, God! You know what railroad journeys are like nowadays. I expect they were held up for about three hours at every single station.'

'That's what a revolution does to the trains. Two hours' delay for every hour on the move.'

With a deep sigh Elena looked at the clock, was silent for a while, then spoke again:

'God, if only the Germans hadn't acted so despicably everything would be all right. Two of their regiments would have been enough to squash that Petlyura of yours like a fly. No, I can see perfectly well that the Germans are playing some filthy double game. And where are our gallant Allies all this time? Ugh, the swine. Promises, promises . . .'

The samovar, silent until then, suddenly whistled and a few glowing coals, forced down by a heap of gray ash, fell on to the tray. Involuntarily the two brothers glanced towards the stove. There was the answer. Didn't it say: 'The Allies are swine'?

The minute hand stopped on the quarter-hour, the clock cleared its throat sedately and struck once. Instantly the clock's chime was answered by the gentle, tinkling ring of the front-door bell.

'Thank God; it's Sergei', said Alexei joyfully.

'Yes, it must be', Nikolka agreed and ran to open the door.

Flushed, Elena stood up.

But it was not Talberg. Three doors slammed, then Nikolka's astonished voice could be heard coming from the staircase. Another voice answered. The voices coming upstairs were gradually drowned by the noise of hobnailed boots and a rifle-butt. As the cold air flooded in through the front door Alexei and Elena were faced by a tall, broad-shouldered figure in a heel-length greatcoat and cloth shoulder-straps marked in grease pencil with a first lieutenant's three stars. The hood of the coat was covered with hoar-frost and a heavy rifle fixed with a rusty bayonet filled the whole lobby.

'Hello there', piped the figure in a hoarse tenor, pulling at the hood with fingers stiff with cold.

'Viktor!'

Nikolka helped the figure to untie the drawstring and the hood fell away to reveal the band of an officer's service cap with a faded badge; on the huge shoulders was the head of Lieutenant Viktor

Myshlaevsky. His head was extremely handsome, with the curiously disturbing good looks of centuries of truly ancient inbred lineage. His attractive features were two bright eyes, each of a different colour, an aquiline nose, proud lips, an unblemished forehead and 'no distinguishing marks'. But one corner of his mouth drooped sadly and his chin was cleft slantwise as though a sculptor, having begun by modelling an aristocratic face, had conceived the wild idea of slicing off a layer of the clay and leaving an otherwise manly face with a small and crooked feminine chin.

'Where have you come from?'

'Where've you been?'

'Careful,' replied Myshlaevsky weakly, 'don't knock it. There's a bottle of vodka in there.'

Nikolka carefully hung up the heavy greatcoat, from whose pocket there protruded the neck of a bottle wrapped in a piece of torn newspaper. Next he hung up a Mauser automatic in a wooden holster, so heavy that it made the hatstand of stag's antlers rock slightly. Only then did Myshlaevsky turn round to Elena. He kissed her hand and said: