The White Guard - Mikhail Bulgakov [51]
Silence.
'I'm asking you: whom do you mean to defend?' the colonel repeated threateningly.
His eyes burning with interest Myshlaevsky stepped forward, saluted and said:
'We are in duty bound to defend the Herman, sir.'
'The Hetman?' the colonel questioned in return. 'Good. Regiment - atten-shun!' he suddenly roared in a voice that made the entire regiment jump to attention. 'Listen to me! This morning at approximately 4 a.m. the Hetman shamefully abandoned us all to our fate and ran away! Yes, he ran away, like the most miserable scoundrel and coward! This morning too, an hour after the Hetman, our commanding general, General Belorukov, ran away in the same way as the Hetman - in a German train. In no more than a few hours from now we shall be witnesses of a catastrophe in which the wretched people like yourselves who were tricked and involved into this absurd escapade will be slaughtered like dogs. Listen: on the outskirts of this city Petlyura has an army over a hundred thousand strong and tomorrow . . . what am I saying, tomorrow - today!' and the colonel pointed out of the window to where the sky was beginning to pale over the City, 'the isolated, disorganised units formed from officers and cadets, abandoned by those swine at headquarters and by those two unspeakable rogues Skoropadsky and Belorukov, who should both be hung, will be faced by Petlyura's troops who are well armed and who outnumber them by twenty to one . . . Listen, boys!' Colonel Malyshev suddenly exclaimed in a breaking voice, although his age made him more of an elder brother than a father
to the rows of bayonet-toting youths in front of hirn - 'Listen! I am a regular officer. I went through the German war, as Staff Captain Studzinsky here will witness, and I know what I'm talking about! I assume full and absolute responsibility for what I'm doing! Understand? I'm warning you! And I'm sending you home! Do you understand why?' he shouted.
'Yes, yes', answered the crowd, bayonets swaying. Then loudly and convulsively a cadet in the second rank burst into tears.
To the utter surprise of the regiment and probably of himself, Staff Captain Studzinsky crammed his gloved fist into his eyes with a strange and most un-officer like gesture, at which the regiment's nominal roll fell to the floor, and burst into tears.
Infected by him several more cadets began weeping, the ranks disintegrated and the disorderly uproar was only stopped when Myshlaevsky, in his Radames voice, roared an order to the bugler:
'Cadet Pavlovsky! Sound the retreat!'
#
'Colonel, will you give me permission to set fire to the school building?' said Myshlaevsky, beaming at the colonel.
'No, I will not', Malyshev replied quietly and politely.
'But sir,' said Myshlaevsky earnestly, 'that means that Petlyura will get the armory, the weapons and worst of all -' Myshlaevsky pointed out into the hallway where the head of Tsar Alexander I could be seen over the landing.
'Yes, he'll get all that', the colonel politely agreed.
'You can't mean to let him, sir?'
Malyshev turned to face Myshlaevsky, stared hard at him and said:
'Lieutenant, in three hours' time hundreds of human lives will fall to Petlyura and my only regret is I am unable to prevent their destruction at the cost of my own life, or of yours. Please don't mention portraits, guns or rifles to me again.'
'Sir,' said Studzinsky, standing at attention in front of the colonel, 'I wish to apologise on my own behalf and on behalf of those officers whom I incited to an act of disgraceful behavior.'
'I accept your apology', replied the colonel politely.