'Ivan! Have you gone crazy? Shut the doors! Shut the front doors, man!'

One of the huge doors slammed shut and a piercing woman's voice could be heard on the darkened staircase shrieking:

'Petlyura! Petlyura's coming!'

The farther Nikolka ran towards the haven of Podol, as Nai-Turs had told him to, the greater became the bustle and confusion on the street, although there was less of a sense of fear and not everyone was going the same way as Nikolka. Some were even heading in the opposite direction.

At the very top of the hill leading down to Podol, there stepped out of the doorway of a gray stone building a solemn-looking young cadet wearing an army greatcoat and white shoulder-straps embroidered with a gold badge. The cadet had a snub nose the size of a button. Glancing boldly around him, he gripped the sling

of a huge rifle slung across his back. Passers-by scurried by glancing up in terror at this armed cadet, and hurried on. As he stepped down on to the sidewalk the cadet stopped, cocked an ear to listen to the firing with the knowing look as of a trained military man, stuck his nose in the air and was about to stride off. Nikolka swerved aside sharply, planted himself across the sidewalk, pressed close to the cadet and said in a whisper:

'Get rid of that rifle and hide at once.'

The little cadet shuddered with fright and took a step back, but then took a more threatening grip on his rifle. With the ease born of experience Nikolka gently but firmly edged the boy backward, pushed him into a doorway and went on urgently:

'Hide, I tell you. I'm a cadet-officer. It's all up. Petlyura's taken the City.'

'What d'you mean - how can he have taken the City?' asked the cadet. His mouth hung open, showing a gap where a tooth was missing on the left side of his lower jaw.

'That's how', Nikolka answered, with a sweep of his arm in the direction of the Upper City, adding: 'D'you hear? Petlyura's cavalry are in the streets up there. I only just got away. Run home, hide that rifle and warn everybody.'

Dumbstruck, the cadet froze to the spot. There Nikolka left him, having no time to waste on people who were so dense.

In Podol there was less alarm, but considerable bustle and activity. Passers-by quickened their pace, often turning their heads to listen, whilst cooks and servant girls were frequently to be seen running indoors, hastily wrapping themselves in shawls. An unbroken drumming of machine-gun fire could now be heard coming from the Upper City, but on that twilit December 14th there was no more artillery fire to be heard from near or far.

Nikolka had a long way to go. As he crossed through Podol the twilight deepened and enveloped the frostbound streets. Swirling in the pools of light from the street-lamps, a heavy fall of snow began to muffle the sound of anxious, hurrying footsteps. Occasional lights twinkled through the fine network of snowflakes, a few shops and stores were still gaily lit, though many were

closed and shuttered. The snowfall grew thicker. As Nikolka reached the bottom of his own street, the steep St Alexei's Hill, and started to climb up it, he noticed an incongruous scene outside the the doorway of No. 7: two little boys in gray knitted sweaters and woolen caps had just ridden down the hill on a sled. One of them, short and round as a rubber ball, covered with snow, was sitting on the sled and laughing. The other, who was older, thinner and serious-looking, was unravelling a knot in the rope. A youth was standing in the doorway and picking his nose. The noise of rifle fire grew more audible, breaking out from several directions at once.

'Vaska, did you see how I fell off and hit my bottom on the kerb!' shouted the youngest.

'Look at them, playing so peacefully', Nikolka thought with amazement. He turned to the youth and asked the youth in an amiable voice:

'Tell me, please, what's all the shooting going on up there?'

The young man removed his finger from his nose, thought for a moment and said in a nasal whine:

'It's our people, beating the hell out of the White officers.'

Nikolka scowled at him and instinctively fingered the revolver in his pocket. The older of the two boys chimed in angrily:

'They're getting even with the White officers. Serve 'em right. There's only eight hundred of them, the fools. Petlyura's got a million men.'

He turned and started to pull the sled away.

#

At the sound of Nikolka opening the front gate the cream-colored blind flew up in the dining-room window. The old clock ticked away, tonk-tank, tonk-tank . . .

'Has Alexei come back?' Nikolka asked Elena.

'No', she replied, and burst into tears.

The whole apartment was in darkness, except for a lamp in the kitchen where Anyuta, leaning her elbows on the table, sat and wept for Alexei Turbin. In Elena's bedroom logs flamed in the

stove, light from the flames leaping behind the grate and dancing on the floor. Her eyes red from crying about Alexei, Elena sat on a stool, resting her cheek on her bunched fist, with Nikolka sprawling at her feet across the fiery red pattern cast on the floor.

Who was this Colonel Bolbotun? Earlier that day at the Shcheglovs some had been saying that he was none other than the Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich. In the half darkness and the glow from the fire the mood was one of despair. What was the use of crying over Alexei? Crying did no good. He had obviously been killed - that was clear. The enemy took no prisoners. Since he had not come back it meant that he had been caught, along with his regiment, and he had been killed. The horror of it was that Petlyura, so it was said, commanded a force of eight hundred thousand picked men. We were fooled, sent to face certain death ...

Where had that terrible army sprung from? Conjured up out of the freezing mist, the bitter air and the twilight ... it was so sinister, mysterious . . .

Elena stood up and stretched out her arm.

'Curse the Germans. Curse them. If God does not punish them, then he is not a God of justice. They must surely be made to answer for this - they must. They are going to suffer as we have suffered. They will suffer, they will . . .'

She repeated the word 'will' like an imprecation. Her face and neck were flushed, her unseeing eyes were suffused with black hatred. Her shrieks reduced Nikolka to misery and despair.

'Mightn't he still be alive?' he asked gently. 'After all he is a doctor . . . Even if he had been caught they may not have killed him but only taken him prisoner.'

'They will eat cats, they will kill each other just as we have done,' said Elena in a loud voice, wagging a threatening finger at the stove.

'Rumors, rumors . . . They said Bolbotun's a grand duke-ridiculous. So's the story of Petlyura having a million men. Even eight hundred thousand is an exaggeration. Lies, confusion. The hard times are really starting now. Looks like Talberg was doing the right thing after all by getting out in time . . . Flames dancing on the floor. Once everything was so peaceful and the world was

full of wonderful places. There never was such a hideous monster as that red-bearded janitor. They all hate us, of course, but he's like a mad dog. Tried to twist my arm behind my back.'

*

Outside, gunfire began again. Nikolka jumped up and ran to the window.

'Did you hear that? Did you? And that? It could be the Germans. Or maybe the Allies come to help us at last? Who is it? Petlyura wouldn't be shelling the City if he's already taken it.'

Elena folded her arms across her chest and said:

'It's no good, Nik, I'm not letting you go. I beg you not to go out. Don't be crazy.'

'I only wanted to go as far as the little square in front of St Andrew's church. I could look and listen from there. It overlooks the whole of Podol.'