He informed himself as to who had been there in his absence.
Dasha told him in detail.
He bared his teeth.
"The blackguards!
Coming for money... a fine Guard!
They're too lazy to lift their aristocratic backsides out of their armchairs, they want the Germans to come and liberate them: this way Your Excellencies - we've just strung the Bolsheviks up, all is in order.... Outrageous, outrageous.... Of the two hundred thousand officers left alive, the only true heroes of the spirit are the three thousand under Drozdovsky, the eight thousand under Denikin, and the five thousand in the "League for the Protection of the Native Land."
That's all.... And where are the rest?
They've sold themselves, body and soul, to the Red Army. Some are making boot polish, or selling cigarettes.... Almost the entire general staff has gone over to the Bolsheviks... a disgrace...."
After eating his fill of flour and salt, and drinking hot water, Kulichok went to bed.
Early the next morning he woke Dash a up.
Dressing quickly, she went in to the dining room, where he was pacing up and down beside the table.
"Here you are!" he cried impatiently, when he saw Dasha.
"Tell me—are you capable of running great risks, making great sacrifices, enduring endless discomforts?"
"Yes," said Dasha.
"I don't trust a soul here. Disquieting news has been received. Someone must go to Moscow.
Will you?"
Dasha blinked and raised her eyebrows for all reply. Kulichok ran up to her, made her sit down at the table, sat close to her, his knees touching hers, and began telling her whom she must see in Moscow, and what she must transmit orally about the Petrograd organization.
He spoke with a kind of slow fury, as if endeavouring to engrave the words in Dasha's memory.
He made her repeat them after him.
She did so with childlike docility.
"Splendid!
Good girl!" he cried, jumping up and rubbing the palms of his hands together vigorously,
"Now what about your flat?
You'd better tell the House Committee you're going to Luga for a week.
I'll stay here another day or two, and leave the key with the chairman of the committee when I go. Will that be all right?"
All this vehemence made Dasha's head reel.
To her own surprise, she realized that she was ready, without the slightest show of resistance, to go wherever she was sent, and do whatever she was told.... When Kulichok spoke about the flat she cast a rapid glance at the maple sideboard....
"Hideous, depressing sideboard—just like a coffin!" She remembered how the swallows had summoned her to, the blue spaces.
And it seemed to her it would be a joy to fly out of this dusty cage, towards some free, wild life....
"The flat?" she echoed.
"Perhaps I'll never come back again.
Do as you like about it!"
One of the men who used to come in Kulichok's absence—a lanky, amiable individual, with a long face and a drooping moustache, put Dasha into a compartment with uncushioned seats and all the windows broken.
Bending over her, he murmured into her ear in a deep voice:
"Your services will not be forgotten," and vanished into the crowd.
Just as the train was leaving, some people came running up, and climbed in by the windows, their bundles hanging from their teeth.
The compartment was now full.
Some climbed on to the ledges at the top, intended for luggage, while others crawled under the seats, where they lay contentedly striking matches and smoking home-grown tobacco.
The train dragged its length slowly past misty swamps, with long-cold factory chimneys towering over them, past ponds coated with green scum.
The Pulkovo Observatory floated into sight on the horizon: there, forgotten by the world, sage astronomers, among them the seventy-year-old Glazenap himself, went on peacefully counting the number of stars in the firmament.
Seedling pines, full-grown trees, summer cottages, glided by.
An armed guard was posted to prevent any more people getting in when the train stopped.
And despite the terrific din, all was peace in the compartment.
Dasha sat wedged in by two soldiers—veterans of battle, prom the top bunk an animated countenance hung down, its owner continually joining in the conversation.
"And then what?" came from the bunk, in a voice choked with suppressed laughter.
"What did you do then?"
Opposite Dasha, between two silent, careworn women, sat a lean, one-eyed peasant with a long moustache and bristly chin. He wore a straw hat, and his shirt was made from a sack, and gathered at the neck with a tape.
A comb and a stump of copying-ink pencil were stuck into his belt, and a bundle of papers was thrust into the front of his shirt.
At first Dasha paid no heed to the conversation.
But gradually she realized that the one-eyed man must be recounting something extremely interesting.