The hearse driver in his dirty robe was in a hurry and kept whipping
up the horse. It was all Aunt Dasha and Skovorodnikov could do to keep
up with it. We came out onto Posadsky Common-a muddy patch of
wasteland between the town and Posad suburb leading down to the
river across Mill Bridge. A short sharp crackle rang out in the distance;
the driver cast a frightened glance over his shoulder and hesitantly
raised his whip. Aunt Dasha caught up with us and started to scold.
"Man alive! Are you crazy? You're not carting firewood!" "There's
shooting over there," the driver growled. A path was dug out in the
hillside leading down to the river, and we drove down it for several
minutes without seeing anything on the sides. They were shooting
somewhere, but less and less frequently. Mill Bridge, from which I had
often fished for gudgeon, came into view. Suddenly the driver stood up
and lashed out at the horse; it dashed off and we raced along the bank,
leaving Skovorodnikov and Aunt Dasha far behind.
It must have been bullets, because chips of wood flew from the hearse
and one of them hit me in the face. The carved wooden upright I was
gripping for support creaked, shook loose and fell into the roadway as
the hearse jolted. I heard Skovorodnikov shouting somewhere behind
us, and Aunt Dasha scolding in a tearful voice.
Pulling his cap down lower and twirling his whip over his head, the
driver drove the horse straight towards the bridge, as though he couldn't
see that the approach to it was blocked with logs, planks and bricks. The
horse reared, and stopped dead in its tracks.
Among the men who ran out from behind this barrier I recognised the
compositor who had rented a room the previous summer at the fortune-
teller's in the next yard to ours. He was carrying a rifle and inside the
leather belt, which looked so odd over an ordinary overcoat, he wore a
service revolver. They were all armed, some even with swords.
The driver clambered down, hitched up the skirt of Us robe, stuck his
whip into his high boot and began to swear.
"What the hell-couldn't you see it's a funeral? You nearly shot my
horse!"
"We weren't shooting, you came under the cadets' fire," the
compositor said. "And couldn't you see there was a barricade here, you
dolt?"
"What's your name?" the driver shouted. "You'll answer for this!
Who's going to pay for repairs?" He walked round the hearse, touching
the damaged places. "You've smashed one o' the spokes!"
"Fool!" the compositor said again. "Didn't I tell you it wasn't us! Why
should we fire on coffins! Fathead!"
"Who are you burying, lad?" an elderly man in a tall fur cap, on which
hung a piece of red ribbon in place of a cockade, asked me quietly.
"My mother," I brought out with difficulty.
He took off his cap.
"Quiet there, comrades," he said. "This is a funeral. This boy here is
burying his mother. You ought to know better."
They all stared at me. I must have looked pretty wretched because,
when everything was patched up and Aunt Dasha, weeping, had caught
38
up with us, and we had driven onto the bridge through the mill, I found
in the pocket of my coat two lumps of sugar and a white biscuit.
Tired out, we returned home after the funeral by way of the opposite
bank.
There was a glow in the sky over the town: the barracks of the
Krasnoyarsk Regiment were on fire. At the pontoon bridge
Skovorodnikov hailed a man of his acquaintance who was on point-
duty, and they started a long conversation, from which I understood
nothing: someone somewhere had pulled up the track, a cavalry corps
was making for Petrograd, and the Death Battalion was holding the
railway station. The name "Kerensky" kept cropping up all the time with
various additions. I could hardly stand on my feet, and Aunt Dasha
moaned and sighed.
My sister was asleep when we returned. Without undressing, I sat
down next to her on the bed.
I don't know why, but Aunt Dasha did not spend that night with us,
the first night we were left alone. She brought me some porridge, but I
did not feel like eating, and she put the plate on the window-sill. On the
window-sill, not on the table where Mother had lain that morning. That
morning. And now it was night. Sanya was sleeping in her bed, in the
place where she had been lying with that little wreath on her brow.
I got up and went over to the window. It was dark outside, and a fiery
glow hung over the river, where bands of black smoke flared up with
yellow streaks and died down.
The barracks were on fire they said, but it was beyond the railway, a
long way off and in quite a different direction. I recalled how she had
taken my hand, shaking her head and fighting back her tears. Why
hadn't I said anything to her? She had so wanted me to say something,
even if it was a single word.
I could hear the pebbles rolling up on the shore; the wind had
probably risen and it started raining. For a long time, thinking of
nothing, I watched the big heavy raindrops rolling down the window-
pane, first slowly, then faster and faster.
I dreamt that someone pulled the door open, ran into the room and
flung his wet army coat on the floor. It was some time before I realised
that this was no dream. It was my stepfather, dashing about the house,
pulling off his tunic as he ran. He tugged away at it, gnashing his teeth,
but it clung to his back. At last, clad only in his trousers, he rushed over
to his box and pulled a haversack out of it.
"Pyotr Ivanich!"
He glanced at me but did not answer. With matted hair, his face
glistening with sweat, he was hastily thrusting linen into the haversack
from the box. He rolled up a blanket, pressed it down with his knee and
strapped it. All the time his mouth worked with vicious fury, and I could
see his clenched teeth—the big, long teeth of a wolf.
He put on three shirts and shoved a fourth into his haversack. He
must have forgotten that I was not asleep, or he would not have had the
nerve to snatch Mother's velvet jacket from the nail on which it hung
and thrust it into the haversack along with the rest.
"Pyotr Ivanich!"
"Shut up!" he said, looking up. "Go to hell, all of you!"
He changed his boots and put on his coat, then suddenly noticed the
skull and crossbones on the sleeve. With an oath he threw the coat off
39
again and started ripping off the emblem with his teeth. He flung his
haversack on his back and was gone—gone out of my life. All that
remained were his muddy footmarks of the floor and the empty tin box
of Katyk cigarettes in which he kept his studs and ' tiepins.
Everything became clear the next day. The Military Revolutionary
Committee proclaimed Soviet power in the town. The Death Battalion
and the volunteers who had come out against the Soviets had been
defeated.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
WE RUN AWAY.
I PRETEND TO BE ASLEEP
Where did Pyotr get the idea that you could travel free now on all the
railways? The rumour about free tramcars must have reached him in
this exaggerated form.