The thin naked torso was reflected in the dusty mirror, the candle guttered in his upraised hand and there was a faint blotchy rush on his chest. Tears poured uncontrollably down the sick man's cheeks, and his body shook and twitched.
'I ought to shoot myself. But I haven't the strength - why should I lie to you, oh my God? Why should I lie to my own reflection?'
From the drawer of a small, delicate, ladies' writing-desk he took out a thin book printed on horrible gray paper. On the cover was printed in red letters:
FANTOMISTS- FUTURISTS
Verses by:
M. SHPOLYANSKY
B. FRIEDMAN
V. SHARKEVICH
I. RUSAKOV
Moscow, 1918.
The wretched man opened the book at page thirteen and read the familiar lines:
Ivan Rusakov
DIVINE RAVINE
Heaven's above -
They say.
And there in heaven,
Deep in a vaporous
Ravine,
Like a shaggy old bear
Licking his paws,
Lurks the daddy of us all -
God.
Time to shoot the hairy old
Contrary old
Bear
In his lair:
Shoot God.
When the shooting starts
Use my words as bullets,
Crimson with hate.
'A-a-a-ah', moaned the syphilitic creature, grinding his teeth in pain. 'Oh, God', he muttered in unbearable agony.
Suddenly, his face contorting, he spat on the page of verse and threw the book to the floor, then knelt down, and crossing himself rapidly with trembling fingers, bowing until his cold forehead touched the dusty parquet floor, he began to pray, raising his eyes to the black, joyless window:
'Oh Lord, forgive me and have mercy on me for having written those foul words. But why art Thou so cruel? Why? I know Thou hast punished me - oh how terribly Thou hast punished me! Look at my skin. I swear to Thee by all that is holy, all that is dear to me in this world, by the memory of my dead mother - I have been punished enough. I believe in Thee! I believe with all my soul, my body, with every fibre of my brain. I believe and I seek refuge only in Thee, for there is no one in the whole world who can help me. I have no one to turn to save Thee. Forgive me, and
grant that I be healed! Forgive me for denying Thee: if there were no God I should now be no more than a lousy dog, a creature without hope. But I am a man and my only strength is in Thee and I may turn to Thee in prayer in my hour of need. And I believe Thou wilt hear my prayer, Thou wilt pardon me and cure me. Cure me, oh Lord, forget about the filth I have written in a moment of insanity, when I was drunk on brandy and drugged with cocaine. Do not let me rot, and I swear I shall become a man again. Fortify me, save me from cocaine, save me from weakness of spirit and save me from Mikhail Shpolyansky!'
The candle flickered out as the room grew cold and dawn drew near. The rash spread over the sick man's skin, but his soul was much relieved.
#
Mikhail Shpolyansky spent the rest of the night on Malo-Provalnaya Street, in a large room with a low ceiling and an old portrait from which, slightly dulled by a patina of time, shone a pair of the epaulettes worn in the 1840's. Coatless, wearing nothing but a white lawn shirt and a handsome black vest with a deeply cut front, Shpolyansky was seated on a narrow little footstool and talking to a woman with a pale, matte complexion:
'Julia, I have finally made up my mind. I'm going to join the Hetman's armored-car troop.'
Her body still vibrating with Shpolyansky's passionate love-making, wrapping herself in a fluffy gray shawl, the woman replied:
'I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you're doing and I never have.'
Shpolyansky lifted a brandy glass from the little table in front of his stool, sniffed the aromatic cognac, gulped it down and said:
'Don't bother to try.'
*
Two days later Mikhail Shpolyansky was transformed. Instead of a top hat he now wore an officer's forage cap, instead of his civilian greatcoat a short combat jerkin with crumpled field-service
shoulder straps, gauntlets on his hands and gaiters on his legs. He was covered from head to foot in engine oil (even his face) and, for some reason, in soot. On December 9th two of the armored cars went into action with remarkable success. They rumbled about fifteen miles out along the highway and no sooner had they loosed off a few of their three-inch shells and fired a few bursts from their machine-guns than Petlyura's advance troops broke and ran. The successful armored-car detachment commander, a pink-faced enthusiast called Ensign Strashkevich, swore to Shpolyansky that if all four cars were sent into action at once they could defend the whole City unaided. This conversation took place on the evening of the ninth, and at twilight on the eleventh Shpolyansky, who was officer of the day, gathered Shchur and Kopylov and their crews -two gunlayers, two drivers and a mechanic - around him and said:
'You must realise that the chief question is: are we doing right to stand by this Hetman? In his hands this armored-car troop is nothing but an expensive and dangerous toy, which he is using to impose a regime of the blackest reaction. Who knows, maybe this clash between Petlyura and the Hetman is historically inevitable and that out of it will emerge a third historic force which may be fated to win.'
His listeners greatly admired Shpolyansky for the same quality that his fellow-poets admired him at The Ashes - his exceptional eloquence.
'What is this third force?' asked Kopylov, puffing at a cheroot.
Shchur, a stocky, intelligent man with fair hair, gave a knowing wink and nodded towards the north-east. The men went on talking for a little longer and then dispersed. On the evening of December 12th Shpolyansky held another talk with the same tight little group behind the vehicle sheds. What was said then will never be known, but it is common knowledge that on the thirteenth, when Shchur, Kopylov and the snub-nosed Petrukhin were on duty, Mikhail Shpolyansky appeared at the sheds carrying a package wrapped in paper. Shchur, who was mounting guard, let him pass into the vehicle compound, lit by the feeble red glow from a lantern. With a somewhat insolent wink at the package, Kopylov asked:
'Sugar?'
'Uh-huh', replied Shpolyansky.
A small, flickering lantern was lit in the shed and Shpolyansky and a mechanic busied themselves with preparing the armored cars for tomorrow's action. The cause was a piece of paper in the possession of Captain Pleshko, the troop commander: '. . . dispatch all four vehicles on mission to Pechorsk district at 0800 hours, December 14th.'
The joint efforts of Shpolyansky and the mechanic to prepare the armored cars for action produced somewhat strange results, By the morning of the fourteenth, three vehicles which on the day before had been in perfect running order (the fourth was already in action, commanded by Strashkevich) were immobilised as completely as though stricken with paralysis. No one could understand what was wrong with them. Some kind of dirt was lodged in the carburettor jets, and however hard they tried to blow them through with tyre-pumps, nothing did any good. That morning they labored hopelessly by lantern-light to fix them. Looking pale, Captain Pleshko glanced around him like a hunted wolf and demanded the mechanic. It was then that the affair turned to disaster. The mechanic had disappeared. It transpired that against all rules and regulations troop headquarters had no record of his address. A rumor started that the mechanic had suddenly fallen sick with typhus. This was at eight a.m.; at eight thirty Captain Pleshko received a second blow. Ensign Shpolyansky, after finishing the maintenance work on the vehicles at four o'clock that morning, had set off for Pechorsk on a motor-cycle driven by Shchur and had not come back. Shchur had returned alone to tell a sad tale. They had driven as far as Telichka, where Shchur had tried in vain to dissuade Ensign Shpolyansky from doing anything rash. Shpolyansky, notorious throughout the troop for his exceptional bravery, had left Shchur, and taking a carbine and a hand-grenade had set off alone in the darkness to reconnoitre the area around the railroad tracks. Shchur heard shots, and was convinced that an enemy patrol, which had pushed forward as far as Telichka, had found Shpolyansky and had inevitably shot him