Mylnikov tried to draw a slant-eyed Kalmyk face beside the crest, but the likeness turned out poorly – he didn’t have the knack of it.
Ah, Kalmyk-Kalmyk, where are you now?
And Staff Captain Rybnikov, so accurately nicknamed by the agents (his face really was rather Kalmykish), was spending the evening of this troublesome day hurrying and scurrying more intensely than ever.
After the incident on Mitavsky Lane, he dropped into a telegraph office and sent off two messages: one was local, to the Kolpino railway station, the other was long-distance, to Irkutsk, and he quarrelled with the telegraph clerk over the rate – he was outraged that they took ten kopecks a word for telegrams to Irkutsk. The clerk explained that telegraphic communications to the Asiatic part of the empire were charged at a double rate, and he even showed Rybnikov the price list, but the staff captain simply wouldn’t listen.
‘What do you mean, it’s Asia?’ he howled, gazing around plaintively. ‘Gentlemen, did you hear what he said about Irkutsk? Why, it’s a magnificent city, Europe, the genuine article! Oh, yes! You haven’t been there, so don’t you talk, but I served three unforgettable years there! What do you make of this, gents? It’s daylight robbery!’
After raising a ruckus, Vasilii Alexandrovich moved to the queue for the international window and sent a telegram to Paris, at the urgent rate, that is to say, all of thirty kopecks for a word, but he behaved quietly here, without waxing indignant.
After that the irrepressible staff captain hobbled off to the Nicholas station, where he arrived just in time for the departure of the nine o’clock express.
He tried to buy a second-class ticket, but the ticket office didn’t have any.
‘Sorry, it’s not my fault,’ Rybnikov informed the queue with obvious satisfaction. ‘I’ll have to travel in third, even though I am an officer. Government business, I’ve no right not to go. Here’s six roubles. My ticket, please.’
‘There’s no more places in third class,’ the booking clerk replied. ‘There are places in first, for fifteen roubles.’
‘How much?’ Vasilii Alexandrovich gasped. ‘My father’s not called Rothschild, you know! If you’re really interested, I happen to be an orphan!’
They started explaining to him that there weren’t enough places, that the number of passenger trains to Moscow had been reduced because of the military traffic. And even that one ticket in first class had only become free by sheer chance, just two minutes ago. A lady had wanted to travel in a compartment alone, but this was forbidden by decree of the director of the line, and the passenger had been forced to return the extra ticket.
‘Well, are you taking it or not?’ the booking clerk asked impatiently.
Cursing plaintively, the staff captain bought the hugely expensive ticket, but he demanded ‘a paper with a seal’ stating that there hadn’t been any cheaper tickets available. They barely managed to get rid of him by sending him off to the duty station supervisor for a ‘paper’, but the staff captain didn’t go to him, instead he called into the left luggage office.
There he retrieved a cheap-looking suitcase and a long, narrow tube, the kind used for carrying blueprints.
And then it was already time to go to the platform, because they were ringing the first bell.
The third syllable, in which Vasilii Alexandrovich visits the WC
There was a lady passenger sitting in the first-class compartment – presumably the one who had been prevented from travelling in solitude by the rules of the railway.
The staff captain greeted her glumly, evidently still smarting over his fifteen roubles. He hardly even glanced at his travelling companion, although the lady was good-looking – in fact more than merely good-looking, she was quite exceptionally attractive: a delicate watercolour face, huge moist eyes behind a misty veil, an elegant travelling suit in a mother-of-pearl hue.
The lovely stranger took no interest in Rybnikov either. In reply to his ‘hello’ she nodded coldly, cast a single brief glance over her companion’s common features, his baggy uniform tunic and gingerish scuffed boots and turned away towards the window.
The second bell pealed out.
The female passenger’s delicately defined nostrils started fluttering. Her lips whispered:
‘Ah, get a move on, do!’ but the exclamation was clearly not addressed to her companion in the compartment.
Newspaper boys dashed, gabbling, along the corridor – one from the respectable Evening Russia, the other from the sleazy Russian Assembly. They were both howling at the tops of their voices, trying to out-yell each other.
‘Woeful news of the drama in the Sea of Japan!’ called the first one, straining his lungs to bursting point. ‘Russian fleet burned and sunk!’
The second one yelled: ‘Famous “Moscow Daredevils” gang strikes in Petersburg! High society lady undressed!’
‘First lists of the dead. Numerous names dear to all hearts! The whole country will be weeping!’
‘Countess N. put out of a carriage in the costume of Eve! The bandits knew she had jewels hidden under her dress!’
The staff captain bought Evening Russia with its huge black border of mourning and the lady bought Russian Assembly, but before they could start reading, the door burst open, and in charged a huge bouquet of roses that wouldn’t fit through the frame, immediately filling the compartment with unctuous fragrance.
Protruding above the rosebuds was a handsome man’s face with a well-groomed imperial and a curled moustache. A diamond pin glinted and sparkled on his necktie.
‘Anddd who is thissss!’ the new arrival exclaimed, eyeing Rybnikov intently, and his black eyebrows slid upwards menacingly, but after only a second the handsome fellow had had his fill of observing the staff captain’s unprepossessing appearance and lost all interest in him, after which he did not deign to notice him again.
‘Lycia!’ he exclaimed, falling to his knees and throwing the bouquet at the lady’s feet. ‘I love only you, with all my heart and soul! Forgive me, I implore you! You know my temperament! I am a man of sudden enthusiasms, I am an artiste.’
It was easy to see that he was an artiste. The owner of the imperial was not at all embarrassed by his audience – in addition to the staff captain glancing out from behind his Evening Russia, this interesting scene was also being observed by spectators in the corridor, attracted by the mind-numbing scent of the roses and the sonorous lamentations.
Nor did the lovely lady’s nerve fail her in front of an audience.
‘It’s over, Astralov!’ she declared wrathfully, throwing back her veil to reveal her glittering eyes. ‘And don’t you dare show up in Moscow!’ She waved aside the hands extended in supplication. ‘No, no, I won’t even listen!’
Then the penitent did something rather strange: without rising from his knees, he folded his hands together on his chest and started singing in a deep, truly magical baritone:
‘Una furtive lacrima negli occhi suoi spunto…’
The lady turned pale and put her hands over her ears, but the divine voice filled the entire compartment and flowed far beyond – the entire carriage fell silent, listening.
Donizetti’s entrancing melody was cut short by the particularly long and insistent trilling of the third bell.
The conductor glanced in at the door:
‘All those seeing off passengers please alight immediately, we are departing. Sir, it’s time!’ he said, touching the singer’s elbow.
The singer dashed over to Rybnikov: