Leyzarov muttered hotly, “That damned bird is still alive!”
Panting heavily, thrashing through the snow, it was not long before he caught sight of the animal in the open field. It was dragging its right leg behind it, slightly opening and closing its fan as if in distress. A bullet had landed in its right upper thigh and it looked as if it was about to collapse.
“I’ve got you now,” laughed Leyzarov victoriously. “Come here and let me finish you off.”
But the bird, flapping its wings frantically, somehow managed to move further from Leyzarov, who chased after it, firing shot after shot. He shouted at the top of his voice, “You stupid bird! I’ll get you if it’s the last thing I do!”
It dragged itself farther and farther on its healthy leg. Leyzarov took aim and fired his last shot. A long wail erupted from somewhere in the darkness, and then came silence. The bird dropped to the ground, dead. Iofe hastened to examine his kill, and when he saw the animal lying limp and motionless on a smooth crust of ice, he shouted loudly, “I got you, you bourgeois bastard! I won!”
As he bent to pluck a feather out of its wing for a memento, suddenly he heard a cracking sound beneath his feet. He was horrified to find he was standing not on solid ground but in the middle of a pond, and the ice beneath him was starting to give way. He could feel his body slowly slipping into the ice-cold water. His muscles cramped and he went completely numb. Cursing the bird for having lured him there, he was certain his life was about to end, either by drowning or by freezing, whichever came first. His blood pulsated in his temples and his head whirled. Kicking the water, frantically trying to stay afloat, he began to realize that his boot heels were touching bottom and that the water actually reached only to his waist. He turned ever so carefully, and, with the tips of his fingers, searched for ice thick enough to support his weight. But the cold was becoming more and more painful, and he was starting to experience a tremendous loss of strength. When finally he found a chunk thick enough, he placed his palms flat upon the surface, and with all his strength pushed himself upward and pulled himself out of the water.
With his clothes already stiffening, somehow he managed to stumble back onto his trail. Without thinking, he took to his heels and fled, not toward Hlaby, but back toward Morozovich, to Dounia Avdeevna’s. He ran so fast he thought his heart would explode. Another ten minutes and he would be at Dounia’s door, comfortable under a thick, warm eiderdown, being nursed back to health, spoon-fed hot teas with liquor and maybe later a little chicken soup. He had to keep moving, to keep his blood circulating. Never had he taken part in such a race, a race for life, and he was doing his best. The frozen wasteland was rapidly closing in on him.
Then all at once things got worse. A cold blast of wind blew in from the north and thick flakes of snow began to fall heavily. “Trouble,” Leyzarov murmured as he forced his way into the driving snow. Chills rushed through him, his teeth chattered, and he could no longer feel his hands or feet. The cold cut through him like a knife. His well-trodden path was quickly becoming snow-filled, and with each step he had to fight deep wind-driven heaps of ice and snow. He no longer knew whether he was going in the right direction. The bitter cold was beginning to affect his mind. He prayed feverishly for the lights of Morozovich. Desperately, hopelessly, he called out Dounia’s name over and over, but his voice bounced off the plains and became lost in the emptiness.
Terrified and desperate, Leyzarov began to weep. He didn’t want to die. He became convinced that his frozen corpse would be found in the morning, perhaps by some local peasants, or even by his comrades. His life, which had been a very full and rewarding one, not only as a prominent Party representative but as a lover was over, and all because of a stupid bird. Dropping to his knees, his strength gone, he began to imagine what it would be like for Dounia when she came to identify his body. Her bitter tears, her misery, her suffering. Poor Dounia!
As he sank deeper into the snow, he caught a whiff of smoke. The smell intensified and a waft of warm air swept across his face. Raising his head and straining his eyes, he could see a faint stream of smoke billowing out of a chimney close by. He was on the outskirts of Morozovich! What great luck! Stumbling to his feet, he tottered toward the outlying houses. Dounia’s was the third on the left; he recognized the cleared walkway leading to her front porch. He had never been so happy to lay eyes on her small wood-framed house, old and decaying as it was, with its sagging roof and lopsided shutters. Crawling up the front stairs, his face coated with crystals of frost, he banged on the front door, waiting anxiously for it to open, for Dounia to appear, to take him into her big, fat embrace, to warm his body in hers. But to his great horror when the door finally did open, it was not Dounia standing there, but Kokoshin, and in his night clothes!
Collapsing on the threshold, Leyzarov was carried inside, stripped of his clothes, and placed in Dounia’s great walnut bed. Half-conscious, shuddering, he fell into a fearful broken dream, barely aware of what was going on around him: there were vague shuffling noises beside his bed, the splashing of water, the sound of voices, first a man’s, then a woman’s. The warmth of the room penetrated him. Struggling to bring himself to consciousness, through drooping lids he saw enormous shadows on the gray walls, and heard a whispered conversation. It was not long before he fell into a deep sleep.
Leyzarov slept for two days and two nights; he slept like the dead. When he finally woke it was to excruciating pains in his entire body. His hands and legs were a purplish blue, and he could hardly move his toes. There was a throbbing in his head and his cheeks burned. Rolling onto his side, he looked around in utter confusion. After a moment everything started to come back to him and he realized where he was and that he had gone through a terrible ordeal. He made an effort to call Dounia’s name, but felt too weak and tired. Burrowing into the pillow, he closed his eyes and dozed off again. He was grateful to be alive.
When finally he woke again, his first thought was of Dounia. The peacefulness of her room, the pale light creeping in through the window, the faint odor of garlic from the kitchen, everything around him made him feel calm and contented. His eyes strayed across the room. An old painted chair piled with towels and linen stood by the door and next to it was a cheap oak bureau cluttered with various odds and ends. Several items were strewn across the floor — undergarments, stockings, shoes. The room was small, almost bare, not the kind of room one would think of as a lover’s retreat. But it was special to Leyzarov, dear to his heart. He was a lucky man to have a woman like Dounia Avdeevna. Closing his eyes he pictured her big, soft, body pouring out over his, her bosom on his chest, her half-open mouth releasing crude chuckles. The mere thought of her made him quiver. Without question, he was coming back to normal.
He opened his mouth to call her, when like a flash his horrible ordeal came back to him and he began to relive it bit by bit. But it was not the ordeal on the pond that really upset him; it was the ordeal that followed, the ordeal on the doorstep of Dounia’s house. Suddenly he remembered vividly: it had not been Dounia who had greeted him at the door that terrible night. It had been a man! With rage boiling up inside him, his heart pounding violently, he screamed out one word: