The White Guard - Mikhail Bulgakov [99]
Fourteen
That evening all the habitues of No. 13 began to converge on the house of their own accord. None of them had been cut off or driven away.
'It's him', echoed the cry in Anyuta's breast, and her heart fluttered like Lariosik's bird. There had come a cautious tap at the little snow-covered window of the Turbins' kitchen. Anyuta pressed her face to the window to make out the face. It was him, but without his moustache . . . Him . . . With both hands Anyuta smoothed down her black hair, opened the door into the porch, then from the porch into the snow-covered yard and Myshlaevsky was standing unbelievably close to her. A student's overcoat with a beaver collar and a student's peaked cap . . . his moustache was gone . . . but there was no mistaking his eyes, even in the half-darkness of the porch. The right one flecked with green sparks, like a Urals gemstone, and the left one dark and languorous . . . And he seemed to be shorter.
With a trembling hand Anyuta unfastened the latch, then the courtyard vanished and the patch of light from the open kitchen door vanished too, because Myshlaevsky's coat had enveloped Anyuta and a very familiar voice whispered:
'Hallo, Anyutochka . . . You'll catch cold ... Is there anyone in the kitchen, Anyuta?"
'No one', answered Anyuta, not knowing what she was saying, and also whispering for some reason. 'How sweet his lips have become . . .' she thought blissfully and whispered: 'Viktor Viktororich ... let me go . . . Elena . . .'
'What's Elena to do with it', whispered the voice reproachfully, a voice smelling of eau-de-cologne and tobacco. 'What's the matter with you, Anyutochka . . .'
'Let me go, I'll scream, honestly I will', said Anyuta passionately
as she embraced Myshlaevsky round the neck. 'Something terrible's happened - Alexei Vasilievich's wounded . . .'
The boa-constrictor instantly released her.
'What - wounded? And Nikolka?'
'Nikolka's safe and well, but Alexei Vasilievich has been wounded.'
The strip of light from the kitchen, then through more doors . . .
In the dining-room Elena burst into tears when she saw Myshlaevsky and said:
'Vitka, you're alive . . . Thank God . . . But we're not so lucky . . .' She sobbed and pointed to the door of Alexei's room. 'His temperature's forty . . . badly wounded . . .'
'Holy Mother', said Myshlaevsky, pushing his cap to the back of his head. 'How did he get caught?'
He turned to the figure at the table bending over a bottle and some shining metal boxes.
'Are you a doctor, may I ask?'
'No, unfortunately', answered a sad, muffled voice. 'Allow me to introduce myself: Larion Surzhansky.'
#
The drawing-room. The door into the lobby was shut and the portiere drawn to prevent the noise and the sound of voices from reaching Alexei. Three men had just left his bedroom and driven away - one with a pointed beard and gold pince-nez, another clean shaven, young, and finally one who was gray and old and wise, wearing a heavy fur coat and a tall fur hat, a professor, Alexei's old teacher. Elena had seen them out, her face stony. She had pretended that Alexei had typhus, and now he had it.
'Apart from the wound - typhus . . .'
The column of mercury showed forty and . . . 'Julia' ... A feverish flush, silence, and in the silence mutterings about a staircase and a telephone bell ringing . . .
#
'Good day, sir', Myshlaevsky whispered maliciously in Ukrainian, straddling his legs wide. Red-faced, Shervinsky avoided his look.
His black suit fitted immaculately; an impeccable shirt and a bow tie; patent-leather boots on his feet. 'Artiste of Kramsky's Opera Studio.' There was a new identity-card in his pocket to prove it. 'Why aren't you wearing epaulettes, sir? Myshlaevsky went on. ' "The imperial Russian flag is waving on Vladimirskaya Street . . . Two divisions of Senegalese in the port of Odessa and Serbian billeting officers . . . Go to the Ukraine, gentlemen, and raise your regiments" . . . Remember all that, Shervinsky? Why, you mother- .. .'
'What's the matter with you?'