There seemed to be nobody and nothing in the flour-mill cellar but the smell of stale tobacco smoke and ash trays bristling with cigarette ends, and a fair-haired man, fast asleep at the end of a table, his head resting on a litter of papers scribbled all over with profiles.
Dmitri Stepanovich touched his shoulder.
The man gave a deep sigh, and raised a bearded face, his light-blue eyes, struggling back to consciousness, rolling wildly.
"What d'you want?"
"Where's the government?" asked Dmitri Stepanovich sternly.
"You are speaking to the Under-Secretary for Public Health."
"Ah—Dr. Bulavin," said the fair man.
"Damn it, I.... Well, what's going on in town?"
"The affair hasn't been completely liquidated as yet.
But it's the end.
There are Czech patrols on Dvoryanskaya Street."
The fair man showed his teeth in a hearty laugh.
"Splendid!
Nice work, by Jove!
Well, the government will meet here at three sharp.
If all goes well we'll be moving into better quarters in the evening."
A sinister suspicion crossed the mind of Dmitri Stepanovich. "Excuse me," he said, "am I speaking to a member of the Central Committee?
Aren't you Avksentyev?"
The fair man gave a vague gesture, as if to say:
"You said it!" The telephone rang.
He picked up the receiver.
"Your place is on the street, Doctor," he said. "Remember, we can't have any disorder. You're a representative of the bourgeois intellectuals—try and calm their zeal.... Otherwise—" (he winked), "there may be trouble later on."
Dr. Bulavin went out.
By now the whole town was in the streets.
Strangers were greeting one another, as if it were Easter day.
Congratulations were exchanged.
Scraps of news communicated.
"The Bolsheviks are plunging into the Samarka by the thousand, trying to get to the other side."
"And they're being shot down like the devil—"
"A lot of them have been drowned, too!"
"Yes, yes! The whole Volga is covered with corpses just outside town."
"And the Lord be thanked, say I' And I don't consider it a sin...."
"Quite right! A dog's death to a dog!"
"Have you heard, gentlemen?
They threw the sexton from the belfry."
"Who did?
The Bolsheviks?"
"Yes. So's he shouldn't ring the bells.... That's what they call banging the door behind them.... If it was anyone of importance—but the sexton!"
"Where are you going, Dad?"
"Just down the street—I want to have a look at the barn, to see if it's all right."
"Are you mad?
There are still Bolsheviks at the jetty."
"Dmitri Stepanovich.... We've lived to see the day....
Where are you going, looking so serious?"
"Well, you see—they've elected me Under-Secretary for Public Health!"
"Congratulations, Your Excellency!"
"Don't congratulate me yet.... Not until Moscow is taken."
"Oh, doctor, we're grateful for a breathing space!"
Gold shoulder straps floated here and there among the crowd.
They symbolized all that was old, familiar, secure.