He tore over to the table on which stood the telephone, with his revolver still lying beside it.
The others jumped up, overturning their chairs.
Yasha took cover beneath the grand piano.
Mamont snatched up the revolver, and Dasha, without herself knowing how it came about, found herself hanging on to his arm, and looking up to him with pleading eyes.
He clasped her slim back beneath the shoulder blades, lifting her off her feet, and glued his mouth on hers with a violence that brought their clenched teeth into contact.
Dasha moaned.
At that moment the telephone rang.
Mamont let Dasha down on to the seat of an armchair—she covered her eyes with her forearm—and grasped the receiver.
"Yes.... What d'you want?
I'm busy.... Oh! Where?
Myasnitskaya Street?
Diamonds?
Valuable ones?
I'll be round in ten minutes...."
Thrusting his revolver into the back pocket of his breeches, he went over to Dasha, framing her face in his hands and kissing her avidly again and again. Then, with a classical gesture of farewell, he went out of the room.
Dasha spent the remainder of the night in the Luxe.
She slept like a log, not even taking off the dress of silver brocade. (Zhirov slept in the bathroom—for fear of Mamont.) When she got out of bed she sat huddled up at the window till noon.
She would not speak to Zhirov, or answer his questions.
At about four o'clock she went out and waited till five in the Prechistenski Boulevard, on the space in front of the long-nosed Gogol, where the skinny children were quietly making mud pies with dust and sand.
She was once more in her old dress and home-made cap.
The sun, which seemed to be standing guard over the poverty of life, warmed her back.
The pinched faces of the children had the old look which hunger gives.
All around was an empty stillness.
No sound of wheels, no loud voices.
All the wheels had rolled away to the war, and the passers-by had fallen silent.
In his granite chair, Gogol stooped beneath the weight of his cloak, all befouled with the droppings of sparrows.
Two bearded men passed without paying the slightest attention to Dasha. One of them was looking at the ground, the other at the tops of the trees.
Scraps of their talk floated back to her.
"Utter defeat! Terrible! Now what are we to do?"
"After all, Samara has been taken, Ufa has been taken...."
"I'll never believe anything again! We won't survive another winter."
"Still Denikin's having his own way on the Don...."
"I don't believe it, nothing can save us. Babylon perished, Rome perished, and we too will perish...."
"But Savinkov hasn't been arrested.
Chernov hasn't been arrested."
"That's nothing! Ah, well! Russia once existed, and now she is no more...."
The same grey-haired lady whom Dasha had seen the day before, went past, timidly displaying from under her shawl the complete works of Rozanov.
Dasha turned away, from her.
The young man with the death's-head tiepin was edging his way up to her bench.
He cast rapid glances all round, adjusted his pince-nez, and seated himself next to Dasha.
"Did you spend the night in the Metropole?"
Dasha bent her head, forming the word "yes" with her lips alone.
"Good!
I've got you a room.
You can move in, this evening.
Not a syllable to Zhirov!
Now to business! Do you know Lenin by sight?"
"No."
He drew a bundle of photographs out of his pocket and stuffed them into Dasha's bag, and sat on in silence, pushing hairs from his beard between his lips.
Then he took Dasha's hands, which were lying lifelessly on her lap, and gave them a shake.