He looked around slowly. He saw some books on the floor, and picked them up, and put them neatly into a pile on the table.
He lighted a cigarette and stood in the middle of the room, his elbow pressed to his side, like a wax figure in a store window, motionless but for the slow movement of one forearm with a hand tracing an even line in the air, carrying to his lips a cigarette held in two long, straight fingers. Nothing moved in the room but that arm with a motionless hand, and the smoke rising slowly, at his lips, then at his shoulder, then at his lips again, the ashes falling to the floor.
When he felt a hot breath on his fingers and saw that the cigarette had burned, he threw the stub into the fireplace and walked to his table. He sat down and opened the drawers, one by one, and looked through their contents. He took out a few papers and gathered them into a pile on the table.
Then he rose and walked to the fireplace. He knelt and stuffed newspapers into the coals and blew at them until bright orange tongues leaped up. He threw two logs into the fire and stood, watching them until he saw white flames spurt from the creaking bark. Then he walked to the table, took the pile of papers he had selected and threw it into the fire.
Then he opened the old boxes that served as his wardrobe. There were the things he did not want to be found in his room. He took a girl’s black satin robe and threw it into the fire. He watched the cloth shriveling slowly in red, glowing, flameless patches, with long, thin columns of smoke, with a heavy, acrid odor. He watched it, his eyes quiet, astonished.
Then he threw in a pair of black satin slippers, and a little lace handkerchief, and a lace jacket with white ribbons. A sleeve of the jacket rolled out on the blackened bricks by the fireplace; he bent and, lifting it delicately, placed it back over the flames.
Then he found “The American Resident,” the little glass toy with a black imp in a red liquid. He looked at it, and hesitated, and put it cautiously down into the smouldering lace. The glass tube cracked, and the liquid sizzled on the coals with a sharp little puff of steam, and “The Resident” rolled into a crack among the coals.
Then he took out the black chiffon nightgown.
He stood at the fireplace and held the gown in both hands, and his fingers crumpled slowly, softly the light silk that felt like a handful of smoke. He held it on his two palms, and looked at his fingers through the thin black film, and moved his fingers slowly.
Then he knelt and spread it over the fire. For a second, the red coals were dimmed as under a clouded black glass; then the gown shuddered, as in a gust of wind, and a corner of the hem curled up, and a thin blue flame shot out of a fold at the neckline.
He rose and stood watching it; he watched glowing red threads running down the black cloth, and the black film twisting, as if it were breathing, curling, shrinking slowly into a smoke light as the cloth.
He stood for a long time, looking at the motionless black thing with twinkling red edges, that still had the shape of a gown, but it was not transparent any longer.
Then he touched it softly with his foot. It crumbled almost before it was touched, and little black flames fluttered up into the chimney.
He turned away and sat down at the table. He sat with one forearm resting on the table and the other on his knee, his hands hanging down, ten fingers motionless, straight, broken only by the small angles of the joints, so still that they seemed grown fast to the air. An old alarm clock ticked on a shelf. His face was grave, quiet. His eyes were gentle, astonished, wondering....
Then he turned, and took a piece of paper from the drawer, and wrote: “No one is to be held responsible for my death.” And signed: “Andrei Taganov.”
There was only one shot, and because the frozen marble stairway was long and dark and led to a garden buried in deep snow, no one came up to investigate.
XV
ON THE FRONT PAGES OF THE Pravda, a square in a heavy black frame carried the words:
The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party expresses its profound grief at the death of a heroic fighter of the Revolution, former member of the Red Army, member of the Party since 1915,
COMRADE ANDREI TAGANOV
Under it, another square in a heavy black frame said:
The Leningrad Committee of the All-Union Communist Party sorrowfully announces the death of
COMRADE ANDREI TAGANOV
The funeral will take place tomorrow, on the Field of Victims of the Revolution. The procession will start from the Smolny Institute at 10 o’clock in the morning.
An editorial of the Pravda said:
Another name has been added to the glorious list of victims fallen on the field of honor of the Revolution. That name may not be known to many, but it represents and symbolizes the common ranks of our Party, the unsung heroes of our weekdays. In the person of Comrade Andrei Taganov, we pay a last tribute to the unknown warriors of the Army of the Proletariat. Comrade Taganov is dead. He committed suicide under the strain of a nervous collapse caused by overwork. His health and body were broken by the demanding, ceaseless task which his Party membership imposed upon him. Such was his sacrifice to the Revolution. Such is the sacrifice of a Party that rules, not for the sake of personal loot and fame, like the rulers of capitalistic countries, but for the sake of assuming the hardest work, the most pitiless tasks in the service of the Collective. And if, in these days of struggle and privation, some of us may weaken in spirit, let us look up to the great All-Union Communist Party that leads us, that spares not its strength, its energy, its lives. Let us make the Red funeral of a Party hero an occasion of tribute to our leaders. Let all toilers of Leningrad join in the process that will escort Comrade Taganov to his last place of rest.
In an office of the G.P.U., a man with a smile that showed his gums, said to Pavel Syerov: “Well, he gave us a good opportunity for a lot of useful noise, after all. You making the opening speech?”
“Yeah,” said Syerov.
“Don’t forget his Red Army record and all that. Well, I hope this will shut them up, those damn fools, some of those old dotards of the 1905 vintage, who showed an inclination to talk too much about his pre-October Party card and other things, the Kovalensky case among other things.”
“Forget it,” said Pavel Syerov.
The toilers of Leningrad marched behind a red coffin.
Row after row, like walls, like the rungs of an endless ladder, they moved forward, swallowing Nevsky in the slow, rumbling, growing tide of bodies and banners, thousands of feet stepping in time, as if one gigantic pair of boots made Nevsky shudder in rhythm, from the statue of Alexander III to the columns of the Admiralty. Thousands of human bodies marched gravely, flaming banners raised high in a last salute.
Soldiers of the Red Army came as khaki ramparts, row after row of straight, husky shoulders, of boots firm and steady in the snow, of peaked caps with a red star on each forehead, and over them — a red banner with gold letters:
GLORY ETERNAL TO A FALLEN COMRADE
Workers of the Putilovsky factory came in gray, unbroken ranks, moving slowly under a red banner held high in sturdy fists:
HE CAME FROM THE WORKERS’ RANKS HE GAVE HIS LIFE TO THE WORKERS OF THE WORLD. THE PROLETARIAT THANKS ITS FALLEN FIGHTER.