Having strangled Raskolnikov, the woman in the wig bounded over to the front of the stage and began dancing wildly to the insane accompaniment of the two violins, kicking her naked legs up towards the ceiling and waving the axe. The four figures in black, who had remained motionless throughout the play, now took hold of Raskolnikov, still covered by the tunic, and carried him into the wings. I had a faint inkling that this was a reference to the very end of Hamlet, where there is a mention of four captains who are supposed to carry away the dead prince. Strangely enough, this thought brought me to my senses straight away. I realized that what was happening was not a conspiracy against me - nobody could possibly have arranged it all in the time which had passed - but a perfectly ordinary mystical challenge. Immediately deciding to accept it, I turned to the two sailors, who had by this time retreated into themselves.
‘Time to call a halt, lads. This is treason.’
Barbolin looked up at me uncomprehendingly.
‘The agents of the Entente are at it again,’ I threw in at random.
These words seemed to have some meaning for him, because he immediately tugged his rifle from his shoulder. I restrained him.
‘Not that way, comrade. Wait.’
Meanwhile the gentleman with the saw had reappeared on the stage, seated himself on the stool and begun ceremoniously removing his shoe. Opening up my travelling bag, I took out a pencil and a blank Cheka arrest order; the plaintive sounds of the saw swept me upwards and onwards, and a suitable text was ready within a few minutes.
‘What’s that you’re writing?’ asked Zherbunov. ‘You want to arrest someone?’
‘No,’ I replied, ‘if we take anyone here, we have to take them all. We will handle this a different way. Zherbunov, remember the orders? We’re not just supposed to suppress the enemy, we have to propound our line, right?’
‘Right,’ said Zherbunov.
‘Well, then,’ I said, ‘you and Barbolin go backstage. I will propound our line from the stage. Once I have finished, I’ll give the signal, and you come out. Then we’ll play them the music of the revolution.’
Zherbunov tapped a finger against his cup.
‘No, Zherbunov,’ I said sternly, ‘you won’t be fit for work.’
An expression somewhat akin to hurt flitted across Zherbunov’s face.
‘What d’you mean?’ he whispered. ‘Don’t you trust me, then? Why I, I’d… I’d give my life for the revolution!’
‘I know that, comrade,’ I said, ‘ but cocaine comes later. Into action!’
The sailors stood up and walked towards the stage with firm, lumbering strides, as if they were not crossing a parquet floor but the heaving deck of a battleship caught in a storm; at that moment I felt something almost like sympathy for them. They climbed up the side steps and disappeared into the wings. I tossed back the contents of my cup, rose and went over to the table where Tolstoy and Briusov were sitting. People were watching me. Gentlemen and comrades, I thought, as I strode slowly across the strangely expanded hall, today I too was granted the honour of stepping over my own old woman, but you will not choke me with her imaginary fingers. Oh, damnation take these eternal Dostoevskian obsessions that pursue us Russians! And damnation take us Russians who can see nothing else around us!
‘Good evening, Valery Yakovlevich. Relaxing?’
Briusov started and looked at me for several seconds, obviously unable to place me. Then a doubtful smile appeared on his emaciated face.
‘Petya?’ he queried. ‘Is it you? I am truly glad to see you. Join us for a minute.’
I sat at the table and greeted Tolstoy with reserve. We had met frequently enough at the Apollo editorial office, but hardlу knew one another at all. Tolstoy was extremely drunk.
‘How are you?’ asked Briusov. ‘Have you written anything lately?’
‘No time for that now, Valery Yakovlevich,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ said Briusov thoughtfully, his eyes skipping rapidly. over my leather jacket and Mauser, ‘that’s true. Very true. I’m the same… But I didn’t know you were one of us, Petya. I always thought highly of your verse, especially your first collection, The Poems of Captain Lebyadkin. And of course, Songs of The Kingdom of I. But I simply couldn’t have imagined… You.always had all those horses and emperors, and China… ‘
Conspiracy, Valery Yakovlevich,’ I said, ‘conspiracy… ‘
‘I understand, ‘ said Briusov, ‘now I understand. But then, I assure you, I always did sense something of the sort. But you’ve changed, Petya. Become so dashing… your eyes are positively gleaming… By the way, have you found time to read Blok’s «Twelve»?’
‘I have seen it,’ I said.
‘And what do you think?’
‘I do not entirely understand the symbolism of the ending,’ I said. ‘What is Christ doing walking in front of the patrol? Does Blok perhaps wish to crucify the revolution?’
‘Yes, yes,’ Briusov replied quickly, ‘Alyosha and I were just talking about that.’
Hearing his name mentioned, Tolstoy opened his eyes and lifted his cup, but it was empty. He fumbled about on the table until he found the whistle and then raised it to his lips, but before he could blow it, his head slumped back on to his chest.
‘I have heard.’ I said, ‘that he has changed the ending, and now he has a revolutionary sailor walking ahead of the patrol.’
Briusov pondered this for a moment, and then his eyes lit up.
‘Yes.’ he said, ‘that’s more correct. That’s more accurate. And Christ walks behind them! He is invisible and he walks behind them, dragging his crooked cross through the swirling blizzard!’
‘Yes.’ I said, ‘and in the opposite direction.’
‘You think so?’
‘I am certain of it.’ I said, thinking that Zherbunov and Barbolin must have fallen asleep behind the curtain at this stage. ‘Valery Yakovlevich, I have something I would like to ask you. Would you announce that the poet Fourply will now present a reading of revolutionary verse?’
‘Fourply?’ Briusov asked.
‘My party pseudonym.’ I explained.
‘Yes, yes,’ Briusov nodded, ‘and so very profound! I shall be delighted to listen to you myself
‘I would not advise that. You had better leave straight away. The shooting will start in a minute or two.’
Briusov turned pale and nodded. Neither of us said another word; when the saw fell silent and the dandified musician had put his shoe back on, Briusov rose from the table and went up on the stage.
‘Today.’ he said, ‘we have already spoken of the very latest forms in art. This theme will now be continued by the poet Fourply.’ - he could not restrain himself, and he rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, making it clear that he was about to indulge in his typically idiotic wordplay - ‘hmm… I have no wish to spoil the surprise, but let this poem serve as a kind of… hmm… foreplay. Your attention please for the poet Fourply, who will read his revolutionary verse!’
He walked quickly back down into the hall, smiled guiltily at me, shrugged, grabbed the weakly protesting Tolstoy under the arm and dragged him towards the exit; at that moment he looked like a retired teacher tugging along a disobedient and stupid wolfhound on a leash.
I went up on to the stage. The abandoned velvet stool stood conveniently ready at its edge. I set my boot on it and gazed out into the hall, which had fallen silent. All the faces I saw seemed to merge into a single face, at once fawning and impudent, frozen in a grimace of smug servility - beyond the slightest doubt, this was the face of the old moneylender, the old woman, disincarnate, but still as alive as ever. Sitting dose to the stage was Ioann Pavlukhin, a long-haired freak with a monocle; beside him a fat, pimply woman with immense red bows in her mousy hair was chewing on a pie - I thought that she must be the Theatre Commissar Madam Malinovskaya. How I hated them all for that long second!