His howls echoed beneath the Institute's stone vaulting.
"Anaconda! Anaconda!" they rang.
"Go and catch the Professor!" Ivanov cried to Pankrat who was hopping up and down with terror on the spot. "Get him some water. He's had a fit."
CHAPTER XI.
Bloodshed and Death
A frenzied electrical night blazed in Moscow.
All the lights were burning, and the flats were full of lamps with the shades taken off.
No one was asleep in the whole of Moscow with its population of four million, except for small children.
In their apartments people ate and drank whatever came to hand, and the slightest cry brought fear-distorted faces to the windows on all floors to stare up at the night sky criss-crossed by searchlights.
Now and then white lights flared up, casting pale melting cones over Moscow before they faded away. There was the constant low drone of aeroplanes.
It was particularly frightening in Tverskaya-Yamskaya Street.
Every ten minutes trains made up of goods vans, passenger carriages of different classes and even tank-trucks kept arriving at Alexandrovsky Station with fear-crazed folk clinging to them, and Tverskaya-Yamskaya was packed with people riding in buses and on the roofs of trams, crushing one another and getting run over.
Now and then came the anxious crack of shots being fired above the crowd at the station. That was the military detachments stopping panic-stricken demented people who were running along the railway track from Smolensk Province to Moscow.
Now and then the glass in the station windows would fly out with a light frenzied sob and the steam engines start wailing.
The streets were strewn with posters, which had been dropped and trampled on, while the same posters stared out from the walls under the hot red reflectors.
Everyone knew what they said, and no one read them any more.
They announced that Moscow was now under martial law.
Panicking was forbidden on threat of severe punishment, and Red Army detachments armed with poison gas were already on their way to Smolensk Province.
But the posters could not stop the howling night.
In their apartments people dropped and broke dishes and vases, ran about banging into things, tied and untied bundles and cases in the vain hope of somehow getting to Kalanchevskaya Square and Yaroslavl or Nikolayevsky Station.
But, alas, all the stations to the north and east were surrounded by a dense cordon of infantry, and huge lorries, swaying and rattling their chains, piled high with boxes on top of which sat Red Army men in pointed helmets, bayonets at the ready, were evacuating gold bullion from the vaults of the People's Commissariat of Finances and large crates marked
"Tretyakov Gallery. Handle with care!"
Cars were roaring and racing all over Moscow.
Far away in the sky was the reflected glow of a fire, and the constant boom of cannons rocked the dense blackness of August.
Towards morning, a huge snake of cavalry, thousands strong, hooves clattering on the cobble-stones, wended its way up Tverskaya through sleepless Moscow, which had still not extinguished a single light. Everyone in its path huddled against entrances and shop-windows, knocking in panes of glass.
The ends of crimson helmets dangled down grey backs, and pike tips pierced the sky.
At the sight of these advancing columns cutting their way through the sea of madness, the frantic, wailing crowds of people seemed to come to their senses.
There were hopeful shouts from the thronged pavements.
"Hooray! Long live the cavalry!" shouted some frenzied women's voices.
"Hooray!" echoed some men.
"We'll be crushed to death!" someone wailed.
"Help!" came shouts from the pavement.
Packets of cigarettes, silver coins and watches flew into the columns from the pavements. Some women jumped out into the roadway, at great risk, and ran alongside the cavalry, clutching the stirrups and kissing them.
Above the constant clatter of hooves rose occasional shouts from the platoon commanders:
"Rein in."
There was some rowdy, lewd singing and the faces in cocked crimson helmets stared from their horses in the flickering neon lights of advertisements.
Now and then, behind the columns of open-faced cavalry, came weird figures, also on horseback, wearing strange masks with pipes that ran over their shoulders and cylinders strapped to their backs.
Behind them crawled huge tank-trucks with long hoses like those on fire-engines. Heavy tanks on caterpillar tracks, shut tight, with narrow shinning loopholes, rumbled along the roadway.
The cavalry columns gave way to grey armoured cars with the same pipes sticking out and white skulls painted on the sides over the words "Volunteer-Chem. Poison gas".
"Let 'em have it, lads!" the crowds on the pavements shouted. "Kill the reptiles! Save Moscow!"
Cheerful curses rippled along the ranks.
Packets of cigarettes whizzed through the lamp-lit night air, and white teeth grinned from the horses at the crazed people.
A hoarse heartrending song spread through the ranks: ...No ace, nor queen, nor jack have we, But we'll kill the reptiles sure as can be. And blast them into eternity...
Loud bursts of cheering surged over the motley throng as the rumour spread that out in front on horseback, wearing the same crimson helmet as all the other horsemen, was the now grey-haired and elderly cavalry commander who had become a legend ten years ago.
The crowd howled, and their hoorays floated up into the sky, bringing a little comfort to their desperate hearts.
The Institute was dimly lit.
The events reached it only as isolated, confused and vague echoes.
At one point some shots rang out under the neon clock by the Manege. Some marauders who had tried to loot a flat in Volkhonka were being shot on the spot There was little traffic in the street here. It was all concentrated round the railway stations.
In the Professor's room, where a single lamp burned dimly casting a circle of light on the desk, Persikov sat silently, head in hands.
Streak of smoke hung around him.