"I ran after you all down Lubyanka.... I was sure it was you, Darya Dmitrevna.
Wherever have you sprung from?
Are you alone?
Or is your husband here, too?
D'you remember me?
I used to be in love with you—you knew that, didn't you?"
There was an oily gleam in his eyes.
It was evident that he did not expect an answer to any of his questions.
He was the same as ever—still in a continuous fever of excitement. But his unhealthy-looking skin had grown flabby and his nose, wide at the base and a trifle askew, stood out on his long, emaciated countenance.
"If you knew what I've been through all these years.... It's incredible.... I haven't been in Moscow long.... I belong to the Imagist group—Seryozha Esenin, Burlyuk, Kruchenikh.
We are undermining everything. Did you go past Strastnoi Monastery?
Did you notice the huge letters on the wall?
It's unprecedented audacity.... Even the Bolsheviks were excited. Esenin and I worked on it all night. We put the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ through it.... Such a piece of cosmic obscenity—two old ladies read it in the early morning and both of them gave up the ghost on the spot.... I'm in the anarchist
'Black Falcon' group, too, you know, Darya Dmitrevna.... We'll get you into the movement.... It's no use protesting, we will! Do you know who our chief is?
The famous Mamont Dalsky.... He's a genius, a second Kean, a real desperado.... Another week or two, and the whole of Moscow will be in our hands.... It'll be the beginning of a new era!
Moscow under the Black Banner!
D'you know how we mean to celebrate our victory?
We'll announce a universal carnival ... throw open the wine cellars, have military bands playing in the squares, a million-and-a-half masked revellers.
Half of them will turn up stark naked—not a doubt of it! And for fireworks, we'll blow up the ordnance depots at Lossino-Ostrovskaya.
It'll be an unprecedented occurrence in the history of the world."
It was the third political system Dasha had encountered during the last few days.
This time she was only frightened.
She even forgot her hunger.
Well-pleased with the impression he had made, Zhirov entered into greater detail.
"Doesn't the vulgarity of modern towns make you want to spew blood?
My friend Valet, the talented artist— you remember him, of course!—has drawn up a plan for the thorough alteration of the face of the town.... We shan't have time to break up everything and rebuild it before the carnival....
'Of course a few buildings will be blown up—the Historical Museum, the Kremlin, the Sukharev Tower, the Pertsov mansion.... We mean to put up boardings along the streets, as high as the houses, painted with architectural designs in an absolutely novel, unprecedented style.... We're going to spray coloured paint over the trees—we can't leave the foliage its natural colour, you know.... Try and imagine the black lime trees along Prechistenski Boulevard, and Tverskoi Boulevard all a sinister purple! Ghastly!
A national desecration of Pushkin is being got up, too.... Do you remember the 'Magnificent Blasphemies' and the 'Struggle against Convention' in Telegin's flat?
People used to make fun of us then."
He recalled the past, giggling and shivering, moving nearer to Dasha, every now and then brushing against the scarcely perceptible curve of her breast as he gesticulated....
"And do you remember Elizaveta Kievna, with her sheep's eyes?
She was madly in love with your fiance, but she lived with Bessonov.
She married Zhadov, a prominent fighting anarchist.... He and Mamont Dalsky are our trump cards.
Antoshka Arnoldov is here, too, you know!
During the Provisional Government he got the whole press into his hands... two private cars.... Slept with women of the aristocracy.... There was one—a Hungarian from the
'Villa Rodel.'—a regular beauty.... He always took his revolver with him when he went to bed with her.
He went to Paris last July—was within an inch of being made ambassador.... The ass!
He didn't manage to transfer his capital to a foreign bank, and now he's starving like a stray cur.
Yes, Darya Dmitrevna, one must keep in step with the new era. Antoshka Arnoldov ruined himself by taking a grand apartment on Kirochnaya Street, and going in for gilt furniture and plated coffeepots and a hundred pairs of boots.
We must burn, smash, tear all-prejudices to pieces.... Absolute, animal, virginal freedom—that's what we need!
There'll never be such a chance again.... We are making a mighty experiment.
All those hankering after middle-class prosperity will perish. We will crush them.... Man is mere boundless desire...." (Here he lowered his voice, and spoke right into Dasha's ear.) "The Bolsheviks are just dung. They were only worth anything for a single week, in October.... And then they turned immediately to the State principle.
Russia has always been an anarchist country, the Russian peasant is a born anarchist.... The Bolsheviks want to turn Russia into a factory—nonsense!
They'll never bring it off.
We have Makhno. Peter the Great was a mere puppy in comparison. Makhno in the south, Mamont Dalsky and Zhadov in Moscow... we'll surround them with fire on two sides.
I'll take you to a place tonight where you'll see the scope of it all.... You will come, won't you?"
A pale young man with a pointed beard had been sitting at the next table for several minutes.
From behind a newspaper he was gazing fixedly through his pince-nez at Dasha.
She had been so stunned by Zhirov's eloquence that she had not thought of protesting: it seemed to her that these supernatural ideas were being born with lightning rapidity in the clouds of smoke, while strange faces with dilated pupils, and teeth closed upon cigarettes floated around her. What could she find to say to all that?
She could only have wailed piteously that these experiments terrified her, but her wailings-would have been drowned in diabolical shrieks of amusement, in taunts, in mocking laughter.