Somewhere in the house a clock struck nine times, solemnly, as if from a church tower.
Dasha bounded violently from the bed.
"I won't let myself get so excited— it's humiliating!"
Undressing rapidly, she ran in her chemise to the bathroom, which was cluttered up with wood, trunks and odds and ends of all sorts.
Dasha stood under the shower, catching her breath as the icy streams ran down her back.
She ran back to her room, all wet, and dragged the sheet from the mattress to dry herself, her teeth chattering.
But she still could not make up her mind. Her glance travelled irresolutely from the old dress which she had thrown on the floor, to the evening frock, draped over the back of a chair.
At last, telling herself again that this was mere cowardice and procrastination, she started dressing.
She was thankful that there was no looking glass in the room.
Flinging the sable cape round her shoulders she stole out into the street like a thief.
It was now almost dark.
She walked along the boulevard.
Men followed her with admiring eyes, and she could hear their extremely equivocal remarks as she passed.
Two men in soldiers' greatcoats, standing under a tree, shouted after her:
"Hi, parasite, where are you off to in such a hurry?"
At Nikitski Square Dasha came to a stop, almost unable to breathe—there was a stabbing pain in her heart.
A lighted tram—two cars coupled together—went by, its bell clanging furiously.
Even the steps were crowded with passengers.
One man, holding the brass handrail with his right hand, and grasping an alligator attache case in the other, turned a powerful, clean-shaven countenance upon Dasha as he was borne past.
It was Mamont.
She gasped and started running after the tram.
He caught sight of her, and the attache case jerked convulsively from his grasp.
Letting go of the handrail, he jumped off, with the tram going at full speed. Falling flat on his back, he clutched frantically at the air, the sole of one of his boots looming huge for an instant—the next moment the upper part of his body disappeared beneath the back car and the alligator case fell at Dasha's feet.
She saw the convulsive upward jerk of his knees, heard the crunching of bones, and the clattering of boots over the cobblestones.
The brakes squealed and the passengers poured out of the car.
A dull film clouded her vision, the road looked as soft as a shroud, and Dasha fell to the ground unconscious, her cheek and arms on the alligator case.
* IX *
The Volunteer Army started its offensive, the so-called "Second Kuban Campaign," with an attack on the railway station of Torgovaya.
The capture of this railway junction was of the utmost importance, being equivalent to the cutting off of the whole Northern Caucasus from the rest of Russia.
On the 10th of June an army of 9,000, including infantry and cavalry under the command of Denikin, marched in four columns to encircle Torgovaya.
Denikin was with Drozdovsky's column.
The tension was terrific.
All realized that the issue of the first battle would decide the army's fate.
Drozdovsky's men, their advance covered by their only gun, charged with buckshot, made a violent rush under the enemy's artillery fire to ford the river Egorlik.
At the head of the column Captain Turkul, who was in command of the regiment, bounced up and down like a rubber ball in the water, spluttering and swearing.
The Reds put up a stiff resistance, but allowed themselves to be surrounded by the experienced foe out of sheer ineptitude.
Their posts were overthrown, on the south by the column of Borovsky, on the east by Erdeli's cavalry.
The Red units, thrown into confusion, abandoned Torgovaya and began retreating northward with their huge baggage trains.
But their path was cut off at Shablievka by Markov's column.
The Volunteers had scored a decisive victory.
Erdeli's Cossack companies scoured the steppe, cutting down the fugitives and seizing prisoners and baggage carts.
Twilight was falling.
The battle was dying down.
Denikin, a scowl on his crimson face, was pacing up and down the railway platform, his plump hands clasped behind his back.
Cadets, laughing and jesting, as men laugh and jest who have come scatheless through mortal danger, were bringing up sacks full of sand, and stacking them on the unsheltered trucks, while others were placing machine guns on the improvised armoured train.
The air was shaken every now and then by artillery fire from a Red armoured train to the north, beyond Shablievka.
The last shell from that direction fell near the bridge over the Manich, where General Markov sat his grey horse.
He had not slept, eaten, or even smoked for two whole days, and was annoyed because the occupation of Shablievka was not going the way he had planned it.
The station was discovered to be occupied by a strong force equipped with artillery and armoured cars.
The day before, and the whole of the present day, his enveloping column had been fighting stubbornly and unsuccessfully.