Into the museum!'
'To the Don!'
The lieutenant suddenly stopped and threw his saddle down on to the sidewalk.
'To hell with it!
Who cares now, anyway - it's all over', he screamed furiously. 'Christ, those bastards at headquarters.'
He turned aside, threatening someone with a raised fist.
'Disaster ...
I see now . . .
But how awful - our mortar regi-ment must have gone into action as infantry.
Yes, of course.
Presumably Petlyura attacked unexpectedly.
There were no horses, so they were deployed as riflemen, without the mortars . . .
Oh my God. ... I must get back to Madame Anjou . . .
Maybe I'll be able to find out there. . . .
Surely someone will have stayed behind. . . .'
Alexei forced his way out of the milling crowd and ran, oblivious to everything else, back to the opera house.
A dry gust of wind was Mowing across the asphalted path around the opera house and Mapping the edge of a half-torn poster on the theatre wall beside a dim, unlit side entrance.
Carmen.
Carmen . . .
At last, Madame Anjou.
The artillery badges were gone from the window, the only light was the dull, flickering reflection of something burning.
Was the shop on fire?
The door rattled as Alexei pushed, but did not open.
He knocked urgently.
Knocked again.
A gray figure emerged indistinctly on the far side of the glass doorway, opened it and Alexei tumbled into the shop and glanced hurriedly at the unknown figure.
The person was wearing a black student's greatcoat, on his head was a moth-eaten civilian cap with ear-flaps, pulled down low over his forehead.
The face was oddly familiar, but somehow altered and disfigured.
The stove was roaring angrily, consuming sheets of some kind of paper.
The entire floor was strewn with paper.
Having let Alexei in, the figure left him without a word of explanation, walked away and squatted down on his haunches by the stove, which sent a livid red glow flickering over his face.
'Malyshev?
Yes, it's Colonel Malyshev.' Alexei at last recognised the man.
The colonel no longer had a moustache.
Instead, there was a bluish, clean-shaven strip across his upper lip.
Spreading his arms wide, Malyshev gathered up sheets of paper from the floor and rammed them into the stove.
'What's happened?
Is it all over?' Alexei asked dully.
'Yes', was the colonel's laconic reply. He jumped up, ran over to a desk, carefully looked it over, pulled out the drawers one by one and banged them shut, bent down again, picked up the last heap of documents from the floor and shoved them into the stove.
Only then did he turn to Alexei Turbin and added in an ironically calm voice: 'We've done our bit - and now that's that!' He reached into an inside pocket, hurriedly pulled out a wallet, checked the documents in it, tore up a few of them criss-cross and threw them on the fire.
As he did so Alexei stared at him.
He no longer bore any resemblance to Colonel Malyshev.
The man facing Alexei was simply a rather fat student, an amateur actor with slightly puffy red lips.
'Doctor - you're not still wearing your shoulder-straps?' Malyshev pointed at Alexei's shoulders. 'Take them off at once.
What are you doing here?
Where have you come from?
Don't you know what's happened?'
'I'm late, sir, I'm afraid . . .' Alexei began.
Malyshev gave a cheerful smile.
Then the smile suddenly vanished from his face, he shook his head anxiously and apologetically and said: