MIKHAIL BULGAKOV - THE WHITE GUARD

'Hurrah! Hurrah! . . . The "Internationale" . . .'

'Shut up, Vasya. Have you gone crazy?'

'Quiet, you!'

'No, I can't help it, Mikhail Semymovich, I'm going to sing it: "Arise, ye starvelings from your slumbers . . ." '

The black sideburns disappeared into their owner's thick beaver collar and all that could be seen were his eyes glancing nervously towards his excited companion in the crowd, eyes which were strangely similar to those of the late Lieutenant Shpolyansky who had died on the night of December 14th. His hand in a yellow glove reached out and pulled Shchur's arm down . . .

'All right, all right, I won't', muttered Shchur, staring intently at the fair-haired man. The speaker, who was now well into his stride and had gripped the attention of the mass of people nearest to him, was shouting:

'Long live the Soviets of workers', peasants' and cossacks' deputies. Long live . . .'

Suddenly the sun went in and a shadow fell on the domes of St Sophia; Bogdan's face and the speaker's face were more sharply outlined. His blond lock of hair could be seen bouncing on his forehead.

'Aaah . . . aaah . . .' murmured the crowd.

'. . . the Soviets of workers', peasants' and Red Army soldiers' deputies. Workers of the world, unite!'

'What's that? What? Hurrah!'

A few men's voices and one high, resonant voice at the back of the crowd began singing 'The Red Flag'.

Suddenly, in another part of the crowd a whirlpool of noise and movement burst into life.

'Kill him! Kill him!' shouted an angry, quavering, tearful man's voice in Ukrainian 'Kill him! It's a put-up job! He's a Bolshevik! From Moscow! Kill him! You heard what he said . . .'

A pair of arms shot up into the air. The orator leaned sideways, then his legs, torso and finally his head, still wearing its hat, disappeared.

'Kill him!' shouted a thin tenor voice in response to the other. 'He's a traitor! Get him, lads!'

'Stop! Who's that? Who's that you've got there? Not him - he's the wrong one!'

The owner of the thin tenor voice lunged toward the fountain, waving his arms as though trying to catch a large, slippery fish. But Shchur, wearing a tanned sheepskin jerkin and fur hat, was swaying around in front of him shouting 'Kill him!' Then he suddenly screamed:

'Hey, stop him! He's taken my watch!'

At the same moment a woman was kicked, letting out a terrible shriek.

'Whose watch? Where? Stop thief!'

Someone standing behind the man with the thin voice grabbed him by the belt and held him whilst a large cold palm, weighing a good pound and a half, fetched him a ringing smack across his nose and mouth.

'Ow!' screamed the thin voice, turning as pale as death and

realising that his fur hat had been knocked off. In that second he

felt the violent sting of a second blow on the face and someone

shouting:

'That's him, the dirty little thief, the son of a bitch! Beat him ____

'Hey!' whined the thin voice. 'What are you hitting me for? I'm not the one! You should stop him - that Bolshevik! - Ow!' he howled.

'Oh my God, Marusya, let's get out of here, what's going on?' There was a furious, whirling scuffle in the crowd by the fountain, fists flew, someone screamed, people scattered. And the orator had vanished. He had vanished as mysteriously and magically as though the ground had swallowed him up. A man was dragged from the centre of the melee but it turned out to be the wrong one: the traitorous Bolshevik orator had been wearing a black fur hat, and this man's hat was gray. Within three minutes the scuffle had died down of its own accord as though it had never begun, because a new speaker had been lifted up on to the fountain and people were drifting back from all directions to hear him until, layer by layer around the central core, the crowd had built up again to almost two thousand people.

*

By the fence in the white, snow-covered side-street, now deserted as the gaping crowd streamed after the departing troops, Shchur could no longer hold in his laughter and collapsed helplessly and noisily on to the sidewalk where he stood,

'Oh, I can't help it!' he roared, clutching his sides. Laughter cascaded out of him, his white teeth glittering. 'I'll die laughing! God, when I think how they turned on him - the wrong man! -and beat him up!'

'Don't sit around here for too long, Shchur, we can't take too many risks', said his companion, the unknown man in the beaver collar who looked the very image of the late, distinguished Lieutenant Shpolyansky, chairman of The Magnetic Triolet.

'Coming, coming', groaned Shchur as he rose to his feet.

'Give me a cigarette, Mikhail Semymovich', said Shchur's other companion, a tall man in a black overcoat. He pushed his gray fur hat on to the back of his head and a lock of fair hair fell down over his forehead. He was breathing hard and looked hot, despite the frosty weather.

'What? Had enough?' the other man asked kindly as he thrust back the skirt of his overcoat, pulled out a small gold cigarette-case and offered a short, stubby German cigarette. Cupping his hands around the flame, the fair-haired man lit one, and only when he had exhaled the smoke did he say:

'Whew!'

Then all three set off rapidly, swung round the corner and vanished.

Two figures in student uniforms turned into the side-street from the square. One short, stocky and neat in gleaming rubber overshoes. The other tall, broad-shouldered, with legs as long as a pair of dividers and a stride of nearly seven feet. Both of them wore their collars turned right up to their peaked caps, and the tall man's clean-shaven mouth and chin were swathed in a woollen muffler - a wise precaution in the frosty weather. As if at a word of command both figures turned their heads together and looked at the corpse of Captain Pleshko and the other man lying face downward across him, his knees crumpled awkwardly to one side. Without a sound they passed on.

Then, when the two students had turned from Rylsky Street into Zhitomirskaya Street, the tall one turned to the shorter one and said in a husky tenor:

'Did you see that? Did you see that, I say?'

The shorter man did not reply but shrugged and groaned as though one of his teeth had suddenly started aching.

'I'll never forget it as long as I live,' went on the tall man, striding along, 'I shall remember that.'

The shorter man followed him in silence.

'Well, at least they've taught us a lesson. Now if I ever meet that swine . . . the Hetman . . . again . . .' - A hissing sound came from behind the muffler - 'I'll . . .' The tall man let out a long, complicated and obscene expletive. As they turned into Bolshaya Zhitomirskaya Street their way was barred by a kind of procession making its way towards the main police station in the Old City precinct. To pass into the square the procession only had to go straight ahead, but Vladimirskaya Street, where it crossed

Bolshaya Zhitomirskaya, was still blocked by cavalry marching away after the parade, so the procession, like everyone else, was obliged to stop.

It was headed by a horde of little boys, running, leapfrogging and letting out piercing whistles. Next along the trampled snow of the roadway came a man with despairing terror-stricken eyes, no hat, and a torn, unbuttoned fur coat. His face was streaked with blood and tears were streaming from his eyes. From his wide, gaping mouth came a thin, hoarse voice, shouting in an absurd mixture of Russian and Ukrainian:

'You have no right to do this to me! I'm a famous Ukrainian poet! My name's Gorbolaz. I've published an anthology of Ukrainian poetry. I shall complain to the chairman of the Rada and to the minister. This is an outrage!'

'Beat him up - the pickpocket!' came shouts from the sidewalk.