Mikhail Bulgakov Fullscreen White Guard (1923)

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Nagged by an uncomfortable presentiment Alexei again looked grimly around and turned, not uphill but down towards the Golden Gates which loomed up, covered in snow, in the middle of the wet, slushy square.

A solitary pedestrian ran towards Alexei with a frightened look and vanished.

An empty street always looks depressing, but here the feeling was augmented by an uncomfortable sense of foreboding somewhere in the pit of Alexei's stomach.

Scowling in order to overcome his indecision - he had to go in some direction, he couldn't fly home through the air - he turned up his coat collar and set off.

He soon realised part of the reason for his unease - the gunfire had suddenly stopped.

It had been booming away almost without cease for the past two weeks, and now there was silence in the surrounding sky.

Yet in town, in fact right ahead of him down on the Kreshchatik, he could plainly hear bursts of rifle-fire.

Alexei should have turned sharp left at the Golden Gates along a side-street, and then by keeping close to the back of St Sophia's Cathedral, he could have slipped home through a network of alleyways.

If Alexei had done this, life would have turned out quite differently, but he did not do it.

There is a kind of power which sometimes makes us turn and look over a mountain precipice, which draws us to experience the chill of fear and to the edge of the abyss.

It was the same instinct which now made Alexei head towards the museum.

He simply had to see, even if from a distance, just what was going on there; and instead of turning away Alexei took ten unnecessary steps and walked into Vladimirskaya Street.

At this point an inner voice of alarm prompted him and he distinctly heard Malyshev's voice whispering

'Run!'

Alexei looked to his right, towards the distant museum.

He managed to catch a glimpse of part of the museum's white wall, the towering dome and a few small black figures scuttling into the distance . . . and that was all.

Coming straight toward him up the slope of Proreznaya Street from the Kreshchatik, veiled in a distant frosty haze, a herd of little gray men in soldiers' greatcoats was advancing, strung out across the whole width of the street.

They were not far away - thirty paces at the most.

It was instantly obvious that they had been on the move for a long time and were showing signs of exhaustion.

Not his eyes, but some irrational movement of his heart told Alexei that these were Petlyura's troops.

'Caught', Malyshev's voice said clearly from the pit of his stomach.

The next few seconds were effaced from Alexei's life and he never knew what happened in them.

He only became conscious of himself again when he was round the corner in Vladimirskaya Street, his head hunched between his shoulders, and running on legs which were carrying him as fast as they could go, away from the fatal corner of Proreznaya Street, by the French patisserie, La Marquise.

'Come on, come on, come on, keep going . . . keep going . . .' The blood in his temples beat time to his pace.

For a little while there was still no sound from behind.

If only he could turn into a razor blade and slip into a crack in the wall.

But inevitably the silence was broken:

'Stop!' A hoarse voice shouted at Alexei's retreating back.

'This is it', from the pit of his stomach.

'Stop!' the voice repeated urgently.

Alexei Turbin looked around and even stopped for a second, because of a crazy, momentary thought that he might pretend to be a peaceful citizen.

I'm just going about my business . . . leave me alone . . .

His pursuer was about fifteen paces away and hurriedly unslinging his rifle.

The moment the doctor turned around, amazement showed in the eyes of the pursuer and the doctor thought they were squinting, mongoloid eyes.

A second figure dashed round the corner, tugging at his rifle-bolt.

The astonishment on the first man's face changed to an incomprehensible, savage joy.

'Hey!' he shouted, 'Look, Petro - an officer!' At that moment he looked exactly like a hunter who had spotted a hare on the path right in front of him.

'What the hell?

How do they know?' The thought struck Alexei like a hammer-blow.

The second man's rifle was suddenly reduced to a tiny black hole no bigger than a ten-kopeck piece.

Alexei then felt himself turn and fly like an arrow up Vladimirskaya Street, desperate because his felt boots were slowing him down.

Above and behind him came a whip-crack through the air - crack-thump . . .

'Stop!

Get him!' Another crack. 'Get that officer!' The whole of Vladimirskaya Street echoed to the baying of the pack.

Twice more the air was split by a high-pitched report.

A man only has to be chased with firearms for him to turn into a cunning wolf: in place of his weak, and in really desperate situations useless intellect, the wisdom of animal instinct will suddenly take over.

Turning the corner of Malo-Provalnaya Street like a hunted wolf, Alexei caught a glimpse of the black rifle-muzzle behind him suddenly blotted out by a pale ring of fire. Putting on a spurt he swerved into Malo-Provalnaya Street, making a life-and-death choice for the second time in the course of the last five minutes.

Instinct told him that the men were chasing him hard and obstinately, that they wouldn't stop and that once they had caught up with him they would inevitably kill him.

They would kill him because he had turned and run, there was not a single identification paper in his pocket, there was a revolver, and he was wearing a gray coat. They would kill him because men in pursuit might miss once, might miss twice, but the third time they would hit him.

Third time lucky.