It was the Bolsheviks coming.
People had been crowding into our office from morning to night, and now it was suddenly quite empty.
The town seemed to have died.
The only sound was the roaring of Perkhurov's car rushing past, and the noise of armed detachments passing.... Some airplanes with Frenchmen in them were expected, some troops from the north, steamers with munitions from Rybinsk.... But these hopes were not fulfilled.
And soon the town was encircled by a ring of battle.
Shells were bursting in the streets.... Ancient belfries toppled down, houses fell, there were fires everywhere, and no one to put them out, the sun was hidden by smoke.
Nobody even cleared the streets of dead bodies.
It turned out later that in Rybinsk, where there we're artillery depots, Savinkov had got up a similar rising which was suppressed by the soldiers, that the villages around Yaroslavl had not the slightest intention of giving any aid, and that the Yaroslavl workers had refused to go into the trenches and fight against the Bolsheviks.... Most terrible of all was Perkhurov's face—I kept meeting him during these days.
He was like Death itself, dashing in his car over the ruins of the town—all that happened seemed to be the embodiment of his will.
Kulichok kept me in a- basement several days.
But, Papa, I could not shake off my feeling of guilt.... I would have gone mad in that basement.
I put on a kerchief with a red cross in front and worked till the night the officer tried to rape me....
"The day before the fall of Yaroslavl, Nikanor Yurevich and I crossed the Volga in a rowing boat. We walked for a whole week, trying to hide from everyone.
We spent the nights under haystacks—a good thing the nights were warm.
My shoes were falling to pieces, my feet were bleeding.
Nikanor Yurevich got me some felt boots from somewhere—probably simply took them off a fence post.
One day, I don't remember exactly when, we saw a man in a birch copse, wearing a torn cloak, bast shoes and a shaggy cap.
He looked just like a madman, marching rapidly and sullenly ahead, leaning on a thick stick.
It was Perkhurov, he had run away from Yaroslavl, too.
I was so frightened of him that I threw myself face down on the grass.... We went on to Kostroma and stayed at a house in the suburbs belonging to an official, a friend of Kulichok's, till the Czechs took Kazan. Nikanor Yurevich (looked after me all the time as if I was a child—I'm grateful to him.... But in Kostroma he came upon my jewels, they were in a handkerchief in my handbag, which he carried all the way in his coat pocket.
I only remembered about them in Kostroma.
I had to tell him all about it—I told him I felt like a criminal.
He developed a regular philosophic theory about this: it seems I'm not a criminal, I just drew a certain number in the lottery of life.
From that moment his attitude towards me changed; it became very complicated.
Our relations were also affected by living in a little country house, and leading such a pure, quiet life, drinking milk, and eating gooseberries and raspberries.
I began to get fatter.
Once, after sunset, he began talking to me in the little garden about love—he said I was made for love, and kissed my hands.
And I felt that he was absolutely certain I would give myself to him in a minute, there, on the bench beneath the acacias.... After everything that had happened, Papa, just think!
Instead of going into long explanations, I simply said:
'It's no good—I love Ivan Ilyich.'
And I wasn't lying, Papa...."
Ivan Ilyich took out his handkerchief, wiped his face, and then his eyes, and went on reading:
"I wasn't lying.... I haven't forgotten Ivan Ilyich.
Everything is not over between us. You know about it, don't you? We parted in March, he went to the Caucasus, to the Red Army.... He's very well thought of—a real Bolshevik, though he isn't a party member.... We broke off relations, but we are still bound by the past.... I haven't broken with the past.... Flor Kulichbk it's all very simple—just sleeping together.... Oh, Papa, what we used to call love is nothing but the instinct of self-preservation. We fear oblivion, destruction.... That's why it's so terrible to catch the eye of a prostitute at night.... It's just the shadow of a woman.... But I'm alive, I want to be loved, remembered, I want* to see myself mirrored in the eyes of a lover.
I love life.... Of course, if I felt a sudden desire to give myself—on the spur of the moment, you know... that would be quite different! But just now I feel nothing but rage, disgust, horror.... Lately something seems to have happened to my face, my figure, I've got prettier.... I feel as if I were naked all the time, and all around me hungry eyes.... A curse on beauty!
I'm writing all this to you, Papa, so as not to have to say any of it when we meet.... I'm not broken yet, you see...."
Ivan Ilyich raised his head.
The cautious steps of several persons, the. shuffling of feet, could be heard from the other side of the door leading into the hall.
The door handle was turned.
He leaped to his feet, glancing towards the window....
The windows of the doctor's flat were not very far from the ground, as is the way in provincial houses.
The middle window was open.
Telegin ran up to it.
On the asphalt pavement lay the long shadow of a man, compass-like, from which there protruded the still longer shadow of a rifle.
It was all the work of a fraction of a second.
The doorknob turned, and two common-looking youths, in peaked caps, and embroidered shirts, entered the study shoulder to shoulder.
Behind them the red-bearded, "vegetarian" face of Govyadin dodged from side to side.
The first thing Telegin saw, as they rushed in, was the muzzles of three revolvers directed at him.
Telegin, wise in the experience of the battlefield, knew it would not do to turn his back on a strong and unbeaten foe. In the next fraction of the second he had shifted his revolver to his left hand, and plucked from his belt, beneath his tunic, a small hand grenade, to which was attached Gimza's letter. "Put those down!" he shouted hoarsely, the blood rushing to his face.
There was something so impressive about this exclamation, and indeed about the whole appearance of Ivan Ilyich, that the bravos were smitten with confusion and fell back a few steps.