One side of Tverskaya Street was in moonlight.
There were no lamps burning.
A patrol was slowly passing through the empty street, silent tout for the sombre thudding of heavy boots.
Zhirov directed her steps into Strastnoi Boulevard.
There were patches of moonlight on the uneven ground.
It was terrifying to turn one's eyes towards the pitch-dark of the shade beneath the lime trees.
A figure seemed to plunge into that shade.
Zhirov halted, revolver in hand.
After a moment's pause, he whistled softly.
A reply came from the shade.
"Gangway!" said Zhirov in a slightly louder voice.
"Pass, Comrade," came in a distinct drawling voice.
They turned into Malaya Dmitrovka.
Two men in leather jackets hastened across the street towards them, but after a glance silently let them pass.
As they neared the former Merchants' Club, from the second storey of which a black flag drooped over the entry, four men emerged from behind pillars in the porch, training revolvers on the newcomers.
Dasha stumbled in her walk.
"What the hell, Comrades!" cried Zhirov angrily.
"Frightening people like that!
I have a permit signed by Mamont...."
"Let's see it!"
The four men, their smooth cheeks concealed by their upturned collars, their eyes hidden under the peaks of their caps, inspected the permit by the light of the moon.
Zhirov's masklike features were frozen in a set smile.
One of the four asked roughly:
"Who's it for?"
"For this comrade." Zhirov seized Dasha's hand. "She's an actress from Petrograd.... She must be rigged out. She's going to join our group...."
"All right....
Go in...."
Dasha and Zhirov entered a dimly-lit hall, with a machine gun perched on a staircase leading from it.
The commandant, a short, chubby-faced youth, wearing the tunic of a student's uniform, and a skullcap, appeared.
He turned the permit over and over in his hands, scrutinizing it earnestly, before asking Dasha gruffly:
"What articles of clothing do you need?"
Zhirov replied for her:
"Mamont has given orders for her to be clothed from head to foot, with the best things obtainable."
"What d'you mean—Mamont has given orders? It's time you understood that we don't take orders here, Comrade. This isn't a shop." (Just then the commandant felt an itching on his thigh, and started scratching the place, frowning portentously.) "All right, come on then!"
He took a key from his pocket and led them to a former cloakroom, now used as the storeroom of the House of Anarchy.
"Choose what you like, Darya Dmitrevna," said Zhirov. "Don't be shy—all this belongs to the people...."
With a sweeping gesture, Zhirov indicated the coat racks, from which hung fur boas of every description, as well as coats of sable, ermine, silver fox, chinchilla, marmoset and sealskin.
Others lay heaped on tables or simply piled up on the floor.
Open trunks overflowed with dresses, lingerie, and boxes of shoes.
A veritable treasury of luxury seemed to have been emptied into the room.
The commandant, perfectly indifferent to this abundant display, seated himself, yawning, on a box.
"Darya Dmitrevna," urged Zhirov, "take whatever you like, I'll carry them for you. Come upstairs, you can change there."
However complicated Dasha's emotions may have been, she was still first and foremost a woman.
Her cheeks flushed.
A week ago, drooping like a lily of the valley at her window, she had believed her life was over, that she had nothing more to expect—it is unlikely that she could then have been tempted by the idea of any such treasures.
Now everything around her seemed to have sprung into life, and everything within her that she had considered inert and done with was in motion.
She was in that delightful state when desires, awakening hopes, reach out towards the tremulous mist of the morrow, and the present lies around in ruins, like a wrecked house.
She hardly recognized her own voice, marvelled over her own replies, actions, the calmness with which she accepted the fantastic atmosphere around her.
An instinct hitherto slumbering within her came to life, telling her that this was the moment to hoist her sails and throw all unnecessary ballast overboard.
She stretched out her hand to a cape of dark sable.