"You have great self-control, Comrade," he said.
"You seem to have reconciled yourself in advance to the fall of Torgovaya. This division is smashed, that division is smashed...."
He turned to the Chief of Staff.
"And what about our army?"
"We are awaiting orders from the Supreme Command.
Comrade Kalnin knows what he is about.
What d'you think—can headquarters bang on the table and demand an order for attack from the staff of the Supreme Command?
War isn't a meeting, you know."
The Chief of Staff gave a subtle smile.
Sokolovsky, holding his breath, gazed into his calm, fat face.
The Chief of Staff did not quail before this gaze.
"That's the way it is, Comrades," he said, going back to the desk.
"And that's why I have no right to withdraw a single unit from the front, reasonable and essential though this might appear to be.... Our situation is difficult in the extreme.
So you just go straight back to your unit.
All that I have told you is for the present strictly confidential.
Complete calm must be preserved in the army.
As for the
'Proletarian Freedom' Regiment, you need not worry about its fate, I've just had reassuring information...."
The Chief of Staff's brows met over his hooked nose.
He dismissed his visitors with a bend of the head.
Sokolovsky and Telegin went out of the office.
The officer on duty in the anteroom was now cleaning his nails at the window.
He bowed politely to the departing visitors.
"Swine!" whispered Sokolovsky.
When they were outside, he seized Telegin by the sleeve.
"Well—how d'you like it?"
"Formally speaking, he's right.
But actually, it's sabotage, of course."
"Sabotage?
That's not it.... He's after something bigger. Let me go back and shoot him!"
"Stop that, Sokolovsky! Don't be an idiot!"
"Treachery, I tell you, there are traitors here!" muttered Sokolovsky.
"Gimza gets information every day— drunkenness at headquarters.
Sorokin has driven away the commissars.
And just try and remonstrate!
Sorokin's God and the tsar in the army, they adore him for his bravery, they regard him as their own.
And you know who that Chief of Staff is?
He's Belyakov, a tsarist colonel. See how it all hangs together?
Come on, now.... Think we'll manage to get by?"
The Chief of Staff touched the hand bell on his desk, and the man on duty made his deferential appearance in the doorway.
"Find out what the condition of the Commander in Chief is," said Belyakov, looking severely downwards at the papers in front of him.
"Comrade Sorokin is in the dining room.
Condition— slightly elevated."
The man waited for the Chief of Staff's reluctant smile, before allowing a smile of profound significance to appear on his own lips.
"Zena's with him," he said.
"Very good!
You can go."
After this Belyakov went to the communications department, where he looked through some telephonograms.
He signed a few papers in his precise, fine hand, and went out, stopping for a moment in front of a door at the end of the corridor.
From the room into which this door led came the sound of guitar strings being softly plucked.