Movements would be confused, muscles would quiver, hands would commit the delay of a second, a split second of inexactitude ... errors of a second would grow into hours, hours into catastrophe.... My works would begin to produce output of lower quality than that of my neighbours.... The concern would be ruined... somewhere a bank would fail ....the stock exchange would respond with a sudden fall ... someone would put a bullet through his heart.... And all because a criminally-beautiful woman had passed through the factory, her skirts rustling."
Katya laughed.
She knew nothing about conveyors.
She had never been to a factory, all she knew about them was that their smoky chimneys spoiled the view. She was extremely fond of humanity in the mass, of the crowd, when she encountered it in the boulevards, and saw nothing in the least sinister in it.
Two of her friends, among those who had supped beside the lake, were social-democrats.
So her conscience was quite easy on that score.
What her companion was saying, as he strolled along with raised head in the warm darkness of the alley, was new and interesting—as new and interesting, say, as the cubist art with which she had at one time adorned her drawing room. But that evening she was not bothering her head about philosophy....
"Beautiful women must have made you suffer," she said, "since you hate them so." Then she laughed softly again, thinking of something else ... something that was as vague as the night, with its scent of flowers and leaves, its starlight streaming through the gaps in the treetops, and making the head swim with the sweet intimations of love.
Not love for this new acquaintance—although it might be for him, after all, for he had aroused her desires.
The thing which, such a short time ago, had seemed so difficult as to be almost hopeless, had come quite easily, and taken possession of her.
There is no knowing what might have happened to her in those days in Paris.... But there was a rude interruption... the guns of world war boomed out.... And Katya never met the German any more....
Had he known of the imminence of war, or had it been just a guess?
A little later, leaning against the stone balustrade, from which they could watch the lights of Paris shimmering like diamonds against the dark line of the horizon, the German had spoken with a kind of austere desperation of the inevitability of catastrophe.
He had seemed obsessed with the idea of the futility of everything—of the beauty of the night, and Katya's charm.
She could not remember what she had said to him, but felt sure it had been some nonsense or other.
But that did not matter.
He had stood leaning his elbow on the top of the balustrade, his cheek almost touching Katya's shoulder.
Katya knew that the night air was mingled with the fragrance of her scent, her shoulders, her hair.... No doubt—or at any rate so it seemed to her now—if he had placed his big hand on her shoulder she would not have moved away... but nothing of the sort had happened....
The wind, fanning her cheeks and ruffling her hair, brought her back to the present.
Sparks from the engine hung in the air.
The train was crossing the steppe.
Katya turned away from the window, unable to see anything for a moment.
She retreated into her corner, squeezing her cold hands together.
She felt suddenly remorseful.
What was the meaning of these thoughts?
Hardly a week had passed since she had heard of Vadim's death, and she had done worse than betray him.... She had given herself up to dreams of a man who had never been her lover.... The German must of course be dead... he was an officer of the reserve.
Dead, dead.... Everyone was dead, everything had perished, vanished, like that night on the terrace above the water near Paris, gone irreparably.
Katya compressed her lips to force back a moan.
She closed her eyes.
A rending grief tore at her breast.... There were not many people in the dirty compartment, feebly lit up by a flickering candle.
Black, wakeful shadows of raised hands, tousled beards, unshod feet hanging from the upper berth, swept across the light.
No one was asleep, though it was very late.
People spoke in undertones.
"That's the worst district there is, I tell you...."
"What?
Isn't it safe here, either?"
"Excuse me—what's that you say?
Robbing going on here, too?
It's astonishing—you'd think the Germans would put a stop to it.
It's their duty to look after travellers ... since they've occupied the country they're bound to keep order."
"Begging your pardon, gentlemen, the Germans don't give a hoot for us.... Look after yourselves, my dears... you began it! Oh, yes!
Banditism is in our blood ... the people are swine...."
To this a confident, voice replied:
"The whole of Russian literature ought to be erased, and publicly burned. It's given us away.
There isn't an honest man in the whole of Russia.... I was in Finland once, and I left my galoshes at the hotel.... They sent a man on horseback after me with them. All in holes, they were.... That's an honest nation.
And look how they dealt with the communists—with the Russians as a whole!
In the town of Abo, after the suppression- of the rising, the Finns burned and tortured the man who was chief of the Red Guard then.
You could hear that Bolshevik shrieking from the other side of the river."
"Oh, Lord, when shall we have something like order?"
"Excuse me, I've just come from Kiev. Grand shops, music in the cafes ... ladies walking about with diamonds on.