The White Guard - Mikhail Bulgakov [134]
Although the bedroom lamp was shaded, Elena had an unpleasant impression as if someone had ripped off the colored silk shade and the unshaded light had struck her eyes. The expression on Elena's face changed until it looked like the ancient face of the Virgin in the fretted silver ikon-cover. Her lips trembled, then her mouth twitched and set into folds of contempt. The sheet of gray deckle-edged paper and its torn envelope lay in the pool of light.
... I have only just heard that you have divorced your husband. The Ostroumovs saw Sergei at the embassy - he was leaving for Paris with the Hertz family; they say he's going to marry Lydia Hertz. What strange things happen in all this muddle and chaos. I'm sorry you didn't leave Russia, sorry for all of you left behind in the clutches of the muzhiks. The newspapers here are saying that Petlyura is advancing on the City. .We all hope the Germans won't let him . . .
A march tune which Nikolka was strumming next door thumped mechanically in Elena's head, as it came through the walls and the door muffled with its tapestry portiere that showed a smiling
Louis XIV, one arm thrust out and holding a long beribboned stick.
The door-handle clicked, there was a knock and Alexei entered. He glanced down at his sister's face, his mouth twitched in the same way as hers had done and he asked:
'From Talberg?'
Elena was too ashamed and embarrassed to reply at first, but after a moment she pulled herself together and pushed the sheet of paper towards Alexei:
'From Olga ... in Warsaw . . .'
Alexei stared at the letter, running his eyes along the lines until he had read it all, then read the opening words again:
My dear Lena, I don't know whether this will reach you, but . . .
Various colors played over his face: against a background of ashen-yellow his cheek bones were tinged with pink and his eyes changed from blue to black.
'How I would like,' he ground out through clenched teeth, 'to punch him in the teeth . . .'
'Who?' asked Elena, twitching her nose to keep back the gathering tears.
'Myself, Alexei replied, deeply ashamed. 'Myself, for having kissed him when he left.'
Elena burst into tears.
'Do me a favor,' Alexei went on, 'and get rid of that thing.' He jabbed his finger at the portrait on the table. Sobbing, Elena handed the portrait to her brother. Alexei immediately ripped the photograph of Sergei Talberg out of the frame and tore it into shreds. Elena moaned like a peasant woman, her shoulders heaving, and leaned her head against Alexei's starched shirt-front. With superstitious terror she glanced up at the brown image in the ikon, before which the lamp was still burning in its golden filigree holder.
'Yes, I agreed ... when I prayed to you ... on this condition . ..
don't be angry with me, Mother of God, don't be angry . . . thought the superstitious Elena. Alarmed, Alexei said:
'Hush, my dear, hush ... it wouldn't do for the others to hear you.'
But no one in the drawing-room had heard her. Nikolka was thumping out a march tune, 'The Double-Headed Eagle', and the others were laughing.
Twenty
Great was the year and terrible the year of Our Lord 1918, but the year 1919 was even more terrible.
On the night of February 2nd to the 3rd, at the snow-covered approach to the Chain Bridge across the Dnieper two men were dragging a man in a torn black overcoat, his face bruised and bloodstained. A cossack sergeant was running alongside them and hitting the man over the head with a ramrod. His head jerked at each blow, but the bloodstained man was past crying out and only groaned. The ramrod cut hard