Dec. 14th.
1918.
2 p.m.' He left out the
'Nai' from the colonel's name for security, in case Petlyura's men searched the apartment.
He did not want to sleep, in case he missed hearing the doorbell He knocked on the wall of Elena's room and said:
'Go to sleep - I'll stay awake.'
After which he at once fell asleep as though dead, lying fully dressed on his bed.
Elena did not sleep until dawn and stayed listening in case the bell should ring.
But the bell did not ring and there was no sign of their elder brother Alexei.
A tired, exhausted man needs sleep, and by eleven o'clock next morning Nikolka was still asleep despite the discomforts of sleeping in tight boots, a belt that dug into his lower ribs, a throttling collar and a nightmare that crouched over him with its claws dug into his chest.
Nikolka had fallen asleep flat on his back with his head on one side. His face had turned purple and a whistling snore came from his throat . . .
There was a whistling snowstorm and a kind of damned web that seemed to envelop him from all sides.
The main thing was to break through this web but the accursed thing grew and grew until it had reached up to his very face.
For all he knew it could envelop him so completely that he might never get out, and he would be stifled.
Beyond the web were great white plains of the purest snow.
He had to struggle through to that snow, and quickly, because someone's voice had apparently just called out
'Nikolka!'
Amazingly, some very lively kind of bird seemed to be caught in the net too, and was pecking and chirping to get out. . .
Tik, tik, tikki, Tweet, Too-weet!
'Hell' He couldn't see it, but it was twittering somewhere nearby. Someone else was bewailing their fate, and again came the other voice:
'Nicky!
Nikolka!'
'Ugh!' Nikolka grunted as he tore the web apart and sat up in one movement, dishevelled, shaken, his belt-buckle twisted round to one side.
His fair hair stood on end as though someone had been tousling it for a long time.
'Who?
Who?
Who is it?' asked Nikolka in horror, utterly confused.
'Who.
Who, who, who, who's it? Who's it?
Tweet, tweet!' the web replied and the mournful voice, quivering with suppressed tears, said:
'Yes, with her lover!'
Horrified, Nikolka backed against the wall and stared at the apparition.
The apparition was wearing a brown tunic, riding-breeches of the same color and yellow-topped jockey's boots.
Its dull, sad eyes stared from the deepest of sockets set in an improbably large head with close-cropped hair.
Undoubtedly the apparition was young, but the skin on its face was the grayish skin of an old man, and its teeth were crooked and yellow.
The apparition was holding a large birdcage covered with a black cloth andan unsealed blue letter . . .
'I must be still asleep', Nikolka thought, with a gesture trying to brush the apparition aside like a spider's web and knocking his fingers painfully against the wires of the cage.
Immediately the bird in the cage screeched in fury, whistled and clattered.
'Nikolka!' cried Elena's voice anxiously somewhere far, far away.
'Jesus Christ', thought Nikolka. 'No, I'm awake all right, but I've gone mad, and I know why - combat fatigue.
My God!
And I'm seeing things too . . . and what's happening to my fingers?
Lord!
Alexei's not back yet . . . yes, now I remember . . . he's not back . . . he's been killed . . . Oh, God . . .'
'With her lover on the same divan,' said the apparition in a tragic voice, 'where I once read poetry to her.'
The apparition turned towards the door, obviously to someone who was listening, then turned round again and bore down on Nikolka:
'Yes, on the very same divan . . .
They're sitting there now and kissing each other . . . after I signed those IOU's for seventy-five thousand roubles without thinking twice about it, like a gentleman, because I am and always shall be a gentleman.
Let them kiss!'
'Oh, Lord!' thought Nikolka.