V
Melnikoff
Some three weeks later, on a cold Sunday morning in January, I sat in the Doctor’s study at his small flat in one of the big houses at the end of the Kamenostrovsky Prospect. The news had just arrived that the German Communist leaders, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg, had been killed in Berlin, the former in attempted flight, the latter mobbed by an incensed crowd. Nobody in Russia had any idea who these two people were, but their deaths caused consternation in the Communist camp, for they had been relied upon to pull off a Red revolution in Germany and thus accelerate the wave of Bolshevism westward across Europe.
Little known as Liebknecht and Luxembourg had been outside Germany until the time of their death, in the hierarchy of Bolshevist saints they were placed second only to Karl Marx and Engels, the Moses and Aaron of the Communist Party. Russians are noted for their veneration of icons, representing to them the memory of saintly lives, but their religious devotion is equalled by that of the Bolsheviks. Though he does not cross himself, the true Bolshevik bows down in spirit to the images of Marx and kindred revolutionaries with an obsequiousness unexcelled by devotees of the church. The difference in the two creeds lies in this: that whereas the orthodox Christian venerates saintly lives according to their degree of unworldliness, individual goodness, and spiritual sanctity, the Bolsheviks revere their saints for the vehemence with which they promoted the class war, fomented discontent, and preached worldwide revolution.
To what extent humanity suffered as the result of the decease of the two German Communists, I am unable to judge, but their loss was regarded by the revolutionary leaders as a catastrophe of the first magnitude. The official Press had heavy headlines about it, and those who read the papers asked one another who the two individuals could have been. Having studied the revolutionary movement to some extent, I was better able to appreciate the mortification of the ruling party, and was therefore interested in the great public demonstration announced for that day in honour of the dead.
My new friend, the Doctor, was both puzzled and amused by my attitude.
“I can understand your being here as an intelligence officer,” he said. “After all, your Government has to have someone to keep them informed, though it must be unpleasant for you. But why you should take it into your head to go rushing round to all the silly meetings and demonstrations the way you do is beyond me. And the stuff you read! You have only been here three or four times, but you have left a train of papers and pamphlets enough to open a propaganda department.”
The Doctor, who I learned from the woman at the lodge was Melnikoff’s uncle, was a splendid fellow. As a matter of fact, he had sided wholeheartedly with the revolution in March, 1917, and held very radical views, but he thought more than spoke about them. His nephew, Melnikoff, on the contrary, together with a considerable group of officers, had opposed the revolution from the outset, but the Doctor had not quarrelled with them, realizing one cardinal truth the Bolsheviks appear to fail to grasp, namely, that the criterion whereby men must ultimately be judged is not politics, but character.
The Doctor had a young and very intelligent friend named Shura, who had been a bosom friend of Melnikoff’s. Shura was a law student. He resembled the Doctor in his radical sympathies but differed from both him and Melnikoff in that he was given to philosophizing and probing deeply beneath the surface of things. Many were the discussions we had together, when, some weeks later, I came to know Shura well.
“Communist speeches,” he used to say, “often sound like a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing. But behind the interminable jargon there lie both an impulse and an ideal. The ideal is a proletarian millennium, but the impulse is not love of the worker, but hatred of the bourgeois. The Bolshevik believes that if a perfect proletarian state be forcibly established by destroying the bourgeoisie, the perfect proletarian citizen will automatically result! There will be no crime, no prisons, no need of government. But by persecuting liberals and denying freedom of thought the Bolsheviks are driving independent thinkers into the camp of that very section of society whose provocative conduct caused Bolshevism! That is why I will fight to oust the Bolsheviks,” said Shura, “they are impediments in the path of the revolution.”
It had been a strange interview when I first called on the Doctor and announced myself as a friend of Melnikoff’s. He sat bolt upright, smiling affably, and obviously ready for every conceivable contingency. The last thing in the world he was prepared to do was to believe me. I told him all I could about his nephew and he evidently thought I was very clever to know so much. He was polite but categorical. No, sir, he knew nothing whatsoever of his nephew’s movements, it was good of me to interest myself in his welfare, but he himself had ceased to be interested. I might possibly be an Englishman, as I said, but he had never heard his nephew mention an Englishman. He had no knowledge nor any desire for information as to his nephew’s past, present, or future, and if his nephew had engaged in counterrevolutionary activities it was his own fault. I could not but admire the placidity and suavity with which he said all this, and cursed the disguise which made me look so unlike what I wanted the Doctor to see.
“Do you speak English?” I said at last, getting exasperated.
I detected a twinge—ever so slight. “A little,” he replied.
“Then, damn it all, man,” I exclaimed in English, rising and striking my chest with my fist—rather melodramatically, it must have seemed—“why the devil can’t you see I am an Englishman and not a provocateur? Melnikoff must have told you something about me. Except for me he wouldn’t have come back here. Didn’t he tell you how we stayed together at Viborg, how he helped dress me, how he drank all my whisky, how—?”
The Doctor all at once half rose from his seat. The urbane, fixed smile that had not left his lips since the beginning of the interview suddenly burst into a half-laugh.
“Was it you who gave him the whisky?” he broke in, in Russian.
“Of course it was,” I replied. “I—”
“That settles it,” he said, excitedly. “Sit down; I’ll be back in a moment.”
He left the room and walked quickly to the front door. Half suspecting treachery, I peered out into the hall and feeling for the small revolver I carried, looked round to see if there were any way of escape in an emergency. The Doctor opened the front door, stepped on to the landing, looked carefully up and down the stairs, and, returning, closed all the other doors in the hall before reentering the study. He walked over to where I stood and looked me straight in the face.
“Why on earth didn’t you come before?” he exclaimed, speaking in a low voice.
We rapidly became friends. Melnikoff’s disappearance had been a complete mystery to him, a mystery which he had no means of solving. He had never heard of Zorinsky, but names meant nothing. He thought it strange that so high a price should be demanded for Melnikoff, and thought I had been unwise to give it all in advance under any circumstances; but he was none the less overjoyed to hear of the prospects of his release.
After every visit to Zorinsky I called on the Doctor to tell him the latest news. On this particular morning I had told him how the evening before, in a manner which I disliked intensely, Zorinsky had shelved the subject, giving evasive answers. We had passed the middle of January already, yet apparently there was no information whatever as to Melnikoff’s case.
“There is another thing, too, that disquiets me, Doctor,” I added. “Zorinsky shows undue curiosity as to where I go when I am not at his house. He happens to know the passport on which I am living, and examination of papers being so frequent, I wish I could get another one. Have you any idea what Melnikoff would do in such circumstances?”
The Doctor paced up and down the room.
“Would you mind telling me the name?” he asked.
I showed him all my documents, including the exemption certificate, explaining how I had received them.
“Well, well, your Mr. Zorinsky certainly is a useful friend to have, I must say,” he observed, looking at the certificate, and wagging his head knowingly. “By the way, does he cost you much, if one may ask?”
“He himself? Nothing at all, or very little. Besides the sixty thousand for Melnikoff,” I calculated, “I have given him a few thousand for odd expenses connected with the case; I insist on paying for meals; I gave his wife an expensive bouquet at New Year with which she was very pleased; then I have given him money for the relief of Melnikoff’s sister, and—”
“For Melnikoff’s sister?” ejaculated the Doctor. “But he hasn’t got one!”
Vot tibie ná! No sister—then where did the money go? I suddenly remembered Zorinsky had once asked if I could give him English money. I told the Doctor.
“Look out, my friend, look out,” he said. “Your friend is certainly a clever and a useful man. But I’m afraid you will have to go on paying for Melnikoff’s nonexistent sister. It would not do for him to know you had found out. As for your passport, I will ask Shura. By the way,” he added, “it is twelve o’clock. Will you not be late for your precious demonstration?”
I hurried to leave. “I will let you know how things go,” I said. “I will be back in two or three days.”
The morning was a frosty one with a bitter wind. No streetcars ran on Sundays and I walked into town to the Palace Square, the great space in front of the Winter Palace, famous for another January Sunday—“Bloody Sunday”—thirteen years before. Much had been made in the Press of the present occasion, and it appeared to be taken for granted that the proletariat would surge to bear testimony to their grief for the fallen German Communists. But round the base of a red-bedizened tribune in the centre of the square there clustered a mere handful of people and two rows of soldiers, stamping to keep their feet warm. The crowd consisted of the sturdy Communist veterans who organized the demonstration and onlookers who always join any throng to see whatever is going on.
As usual the proceedings started late, and the small but patient crowd was beginning to dwindle before the chief speakers arrived. A group of commonplace-looking individuals, standing on the tribune, lounged and smoked cigarettes, apparently not knowing exactly what to do with themselves. I pushed myself forward to be as near the speakers as possible.
To my surprise I noticed Dmitri, Stepanovna’s nephew, among the soldiers who stood blowing on their hands and looking miserable. I moved a few steps away, so that he might not see me. I was afraid he would make some sign of recognition which might lead to questions by his comrades, and I had no idea who they might be. But I was greatly amused at seeing him at a demonstration of this sort.
At length an automobile dashed up, and amid faint cheers and to the accompaniment of bugles, Zinoviev, president of the Petrograd Soviet, alighted and mounted the tribune. Zinoviev, whose real name is Apfelbaum, is a very important person in Bolshevist Russia. He is considered one of the greatest orators of the Communist Party, and now occupies the proud position of president of the Third International, the institution that is to effect the world revolution.
It is to his oratorical skill rather than any administrative ability that Zinoviev owes his prominence. His rhetoric is of a peculiar order. He is unrivalled in his appeal to the ignorant mob, but, judging by his speeches, logic is unknown to him, and on no thinking audience could he produce any impression beyond that of wonderment at his uncommon command of language, ready though cheap witticisms, and inexhaustible fund of florid and vulgar invective. Zinoviev is, in fact, the consummate gutter-demagogue. He is a coward, shirked office in November, 1917, fearing the instability of the Bolshevist coup, has since been chief advocate of all the insaner aspects of Bolshevism, and is always the first to lose his head and fly into a panic when danger-clouds appear on any horizon.
Removing his hat, Zinoviev approached the rail, and stood there in his rich fur coat until someone down below gave a signal to cheer. Then he began to speak in the following strain:
“Comrades! Wherefore are we gathered here today? What mean this tribune and this concourse of people? Is it to celebrate a triumph of world revolution, to hail another conquest over the vicious ogre of Capitalism? Alas, no! Today we mourn the two greatest heroes of our age, murdered deliberately, brutally, and in cold blood by blackguard capitalist agents. The German Government, consisting of the social-traitor Scheidemann and other supposed Socialists, the scum and dregs of humanity, have sold themselves like Judas Iscariot for thirty shekels of silver to the German bourgeoisie, and at the command of the capitalists ordered their paid hirelings foully to murder the two chosen representatives of the German workers and peasants …” and so on.
I never listened to Zinoviev without recalling a meeting in the summer of 1917 when he was the chief speaker. He had just returned to Russia with a group of other Bolshevist leaders (very few of whom were present during the revolution) and was holding incendiary meetings in out-of-the-way places. He was thin and slim and looked the typical Jewish student of any Russian university. But after a year’s fattening on the Russian proletariat he had swelled not only politically but physically, and his full, handsome features and flowing bushy hair spoke of anything but privation.
Contrary to custom, Zinoviev’s speech was short. It must have been cold, speaking in the chilly wind, and in any case there were not many people to talk to.
The next speaker was more novel—Herr Otto Pertz, president of the German Soviet of Petrograd. Why a German Soviet continued to live and move and have its being in Petrograd, or what its functions were, nobody seemed to know. The comings and goings of unsere deutsche Genossen appeared to be above criticism and were always a mystery. Herr Otto Pertz was tall, clean shaven, Germanly tidy, and could not speak Russian.
“Genossen! heute feiern wir—” he began, and proceeded to laud the memory of the fallen heroes and to foretell the coming social revolution in Germany. The dastardly tyrants of Berlin, insolently styling themselves Socialists, would shortly be overthrown. Kapitalismus, Imperialismus, in fact everything but Kommunismus, would be demolished. He had information that within a week or two Spartacus (the German Bolshevist group), with all Germany behind it, would successfully seize power in Berlin and join in a triumphant and indissoluble alliance with the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic.
As Otto Pertz commenced his oration a neatly dressed little lady of about fifty, who stood at my side near the foot of the tribune, looked up eagerly at the speaker. Her eyes shone brightly and her breath came quickly. Seeing I had noticed her she said timidly, “Spricht er nicht gut? Sagen Sie doch, spricht er nicht gut?”
To which I of course replied, “Sehr gut,” and she relapsed bashfully into admiration of Otto, murmuring now and again, “Ach! es ist doch wahr, nicht?” with which sentiment also I would agree.
The crowd listened patiently, as the Russian crowd always listens, whoever speaks, and on whatever subject. The soldiers shivered and wondered what the speaker was talking about. His speech was not translated.
But when Otto Pertz ceased there was a commotion in the throng. For some moments I was at a loss as to what was in progress, until at last a passage was made and, borne on valiant Communist shoulders, a guy, the special attraction of the day, was produced. The effigy, made of pasteboard, represented a ferocious-looking German with Kaiser-like moustachios, clothed in evening dress, and bearing across its chest in large letters on cardboard the name of the German Socialist,
Scheidemann.
At the same time an improvised gallows was thrust over the balustrade of the tribune. Amid curses, jeers, and execrations, the moustachioed effigy was raised aloft. Eager hands attached the dangling loop and there it hung, most abject, most melancholy, encased in evening dress, and black trousers with hollow extremities flapping in the breeze.
The crowd awoke and tittered and even the soldiers smiled. Dmitri, I could see, was laughing outright. This was after all worth coming to see. Kerosene was poured on the dangling Scheidemann and he was set alight. There were laughter, howls, and fanfares. Zinoviev, in tragic pose, with uplifted arm and pointed finger, cried hoarsely, “Thus perish traitors!” The bugles blew. The people, roused with delight, cheered lustily. Only the wretched Scheidemann was indifferent to the interest he was arousing, as with a stony glare on his cardboard face he soared aloft amid sparks and ashes into eternity.
Crowd psychology, I mused as I walked away, has been an important factor on all public occasions since the revolution, but appreciated to the full only by the Bolsheviks. Everyone who was in Russia in 1917 and who attended political meetings when free speech became a possibility remembers how a speaker would get up and speak, loudly applauded by the whole audience; then another would rise and say the precise opposite, rewarded with equally vociferous approbation; followed again by a third who said something totally at variance with the first two, and how the enthusiasm would increase in proportion to the uncertainty as to who was actually right. The crowds were just like little children. Totally unaccustomed to free speech, they appeared to imagine that anybody who spoke must ipso facto be right. But just when the people, after the Bolshevist coup d’état, were beginning to demand reason in public utterance and deeds instead of promises, down came a super-Tsarist Bolshevist censorship like a huge candle-snuffer and clapping itself on the flame of public criticism, snuffed it out altogether.
Public demonstrations, however, were made an important item in the curriculum of the Bolshevist administration, and soon became as compulsory as military service. I record the above one not because of its intrinsic interest (it really had very little), but because it was, I believe, one of the last occasions on which it was left to the public to make the demonstration a success or not, and regiments were merely “invited.”
I made my way to Stepanovna’s in the hope of meeting Dmitri. He came in toward the close of the afternoon, and I asked him if he had enjoyed the demonstration.
“Too cold,” he replied; “they ought to have had it on a warmer day.”
“Did you come voluntarily?”
“Why, yes.” He pulled out of the spacious pocket of his tunic a parcel wrapped up in newspaper, and unwrapping it, disclosed a pound of bread. “We were told we should get this if we came. It has just been doled out.”
Stepanovna’s eyes opened wide. Deeply interested, she asked when the next demonstration was going to be.
“Why didn’t more soldiers come, then?” I asked.
“Not enough bread, I suppose,” said Dmitri. “We have been getting it irregularly of late. But we have a new commissar who is a good fellow. They say in the regiment he gets everything for us first. He talks to us decently, too. I am beginning to like him. Perhaps he is not one like the rest.”
“By the way, Dmitri,” I said, “do you happen to know who those people were for whom we demonstrated today?”
From the depths of his crumb-filled pocket Dmitri extracted a crumpled and soiled pamphlet. Holding it to the light he slowly read out the title: “Who Were Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg?”
“We were each given one yesterday,” he explained, “after an agitator had made a long speech to us. Nobody listened to the agitator—some Jew or other—but the commissar gave me this. I read little nowadays, but I think I will read it when I have time.”
“And the speakers and the guy?” I queried.
“I didn’t notice the speakers. One of them spoke not in our way—German, someone said. But the guy! That was funny! My, Stepanovna, you ought to have seen it! How it floated up into the air! You would have split your sides laughing. Who was it supposed to represent, by the way?”
I explained how the revolution in Germany had resulted in the downfall of the Kaiser and the formation of a radical Cabinet with a Socialist—Scheidemann—at its head. Scheidemann was the guy today, I said, for reasons which I presumed he would find stated in Who Were Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg?
“But if the Kaiser is out, why do our Bolsheviks burn—what’s his name—?”
“Ah, but, Dmitri,” I put in, “if you had understood the German speaker today, you would have heard him tell how there is shortly to be another revolution in Germany like that which happened here in November, 1917, and they will set up a Soviet Government like Lenin’s.”
As our conversation proceeded, Stepanovna and Varia stopped their work to listen, their interest grew apace, and at last they hung on to every word as if it were of profound significance. When I repeated the substance of Otto Pertz’s predictions, all three of my companions were listening spellbound and with mouths agape. There was a long pause, which at length Stepanovna broke.
“Is it really possible,” she exclaimed, slowly, and apparently in utter bewilderment, “that the Germans—are—such—fools?”
“Evasive, Doctor, very evasive,” I said, as we sat over tea and a few dry biscuits the Doctor had procured from somewhere. “Yesterday evening he gave me some interesting information about industrial developments, alteration of railway administration, and changes in the Red fleet; but the moment Melnikoff is mentioned then it is, ‘Oh, Melnikoff? in a day or two I think we may know definitely,’ or ‘My informant is out of town,’ and so on.”
“Perhaps there is a hitch somewhere,” suggested the Doctor. “I suppose there is nothing to do but wait. By the way, you wanted a passport, didn’t you? How will that suit you?”
I have forgotten the precise wording of the paper he handed me, for I had to destroy it later, but it was an ordinary certificate of identification, in the name of Alexander Vasilievitch Markovitch, aged thirty-three, clerical assistant at the head Postal-Telegraph Office. There was no photograph attached, but in view of the strict requirements regarding passports, which included their frequent renewal (except in certain cases no passports might be made out for more than two months), and the difficulty of getting photographs, the latter were dropping out of general use.
“Shura procured it,” the Doctor explained. “A friend of his, by name Markov, arrived recently from Moscow to work at the Telegraph Office. A week later he heard his wife was seriously ill and got special permission to return. A week in Petrograd was enough for him anyway, for living is much better in Moscow, so he doesn’t intend to come back. Shura asked him for his passport and after Markov had got his railroad pass and paper showing he was authorized to return to Moscow, he gave it him. If they ask for it in Moscow, he will say he has lost it. He would have to have a new one anyway, since a Petrograd one is useless there. My typewriter at the hospital has the same type as this, so we altered the date a little, added ‘itch’ to the name—and there you are, if you wish, a ready-made postal official.”
“What about clothing?” I said. “I don’t look much like a postal official.”
“There is something more important than that. What about military service?”
From my pocket I produced a new pamphlet on the soviet system. Opening a pocket of the uncut leaves at a certain page, I drew forth my blank exemption certificate and exhibited it to the Doctor.
“What are you, a magician?” he asked admiringly. “Or is this another gift from your friend Z.?”
“The certificates were born twins,” I said. “Zorinsky was accoucheur to the first, I to the second.”
In an hour I had filled in the blank exemption form with all particulars relating to Alexander Vasilievitch Markovitch. Tracing the signatures carefully, and inserting a recent date, I managed to produce a document indistinguishable as regards authenticity from the original, and thus was possessed of two sets of documents, one in the name of Krylenko for the benefit of Zorinsky, the other in that of Markovitch for presentation in the streets and possible registration.
Considering once more the question of uniform I recalled that at my own rooms where I had lived for years I had left a variety of clothing when last in Petrograd six or eight months previously. The question was: How could I gain admittance to my rooms, disguised as I was and with an assumed name? Furthermore, a telephone call having elicited no response, I had no idea whether the housekeeper whom I had left was still there, nor whether the apartment had been raided, locked up, or occupied by workmen. All these things I was curious to know, quite apart from obtaining clothing.
I enlisted the services of Varia as scout. Varia was the first person to whom I confided my English name, and doing it with due solemnity, and with severe cautionings that not even Stepanovna should be told, I could see that the girl was impressed with my confidence in her. Armed with a brief note to my housekeeper purporting to be written by a fictitious friend of mine, and warned to turn back unless everything were precisely as I described, Varia set out on a voyage of discovery.
She returned to impart the information that the front door of the house being locked she had entered by the yard, had encountered nobody on the backstairs, and that in answer to persistent ringing a woman, whom I recognized by the description as my housekeeper, had opened the kitchen door on a short chain, and, peering suspiciously through the chink, had at first vehemently denied any acquaintance with any English people at all. On perusing the note from my nonexistent friend, however, she admitted that an Englishman of my name had formerly lived there, but she had the strictest injunctions from him to admit nobody to the flat.
Pursuing my instructions, Varia informed the housekeeper that my friend, Mr. Markovitch, had just arrived from Moscow. He was busy today, she said, and had sent her round to inquire after my affairs, but would call himself at an early opportunity.
The one article of clothing which I frequently changed and of which I had a diverse stock was headgear. It is surprising how headdress can impart character (or the lack of it) to one’s appearance. Donning my most bourgeois fur cap, polishing my leather breeches and brushing my jacket, I proceeded on the following day to my former home, entering by the yard as Varia had done and ringing at the back door. The house appeared deserted, for I saw no one in the yard, nor heard any sounds of life. When, in reply to persistent ringing, the door was opened on the chain, I saw my housekeeper peering through the chink just as Varia had described. My first impulse was to laugh, it seemed so ridiculous to be standing on one’s own backstairs, pretending to be someone else, and begging admittance to one’s own rooms by the back door.
I hadn’t time to laugh, however. The moment my housekeeper saw the apparition on the stairway she closed the door again promptly and rebolted it, and it was only after a great deal of additional knocking and ringing that at last the door was once again timidly opened just a tiny bit.
Greeting the woman courteously, I announced myself as Mr. Markovitch, close personal friend and school companion of the Englishman who formerly had occupied these rooms. My friend, I said, was now in England and regretted the impossibility of returning to Russia under present conditions. I had recently received a letter from him, I declared, brought somehow across the frontier, in which, sending his greetings to Martha Timofeievna (the housekeeper), he had requested me at the earliest opportunity to visit his home and report on its condition. To reduce Martha Timofeievna’s suspicions, I assured her that before the war I had been a frequent visitor to this flat, and gave numerous data which left no doubt whatsoever in her mind that I was at least well acquainted with the arrangement of the rooms, and with the furniture and pictures that had formerly been in them. I added, of course, that on the last occasion when I had seen my friend, he had spoken of his new housekeeper in terms of the highest praise, and assured me again in his letter that I should find her good-mannered, hospitable, and obliging.
The upshot was that, though Martha Timofeievna was at first categorical in her refusal to admit anyone to the flat, she ultimately agreed to do so if I could show her the actual letter written by “Monsieur Dukes,” requesting permission for his friend to be admitted.
I told her I would bring it to her that very afternoon, and, highly satisfied with the result of the interview, I retired at once to the nearest convenient place, which happened to be the Journalist’s, to write it.
“Dear Sasha,” I wrote in Russian, using the familiar name for Alexander (my Christian name according to my new papers), “I can scarcely hope you will ever receive this, yet on the chance that you may—etc.,”—and I proceeded to give a good deal of imaginary family news. Toward the end I said, “By the way, when you are in Petrograd, please go to my flat and see Martha Timofeievna—etc.,” and I gave instructions as to what “Sasha” was to do, and permission to take anything he needed. “I write in Russian,” I concluded, “so that in case of necessity you may show this letter to M. T. She is a good woman and will do everything for you. Give her my hearty greetings and tell her I hope to return at the first opportunity. Write if ever you can. Goodbye. Yours ever, Pavlusha.”
I put the letter in an envelope, addressed it to “Sasha Markovitch,” sealed it up, tore it open again, crumpled it, and put it in my pocket.
The same afternoon I presented myself once more at my back door.
Martha Timofeievna’s suspicions had evidently already been considerably allayed, for she smiled amiably even before perusing the letter I put into her hand, and at once admitted me as far as the kitchen. Here she laboriously read the letter through (being from the Baltic provinces she spoke Russian badly and read with difficulty), and, paying numerous compliments to the author, who she hoped would soon return because she didn’t know what she was going to do about the flat or how long she would be able to keep on living there, she led me into the familiar rooms.
Everything was in a state of confusion. Many of the pictures were torn down, furniture was smashed, and in the middle of the floor of the dining-room lay a heap of junk, consisting of books, papers, pictures, furniture, and torn clothing. In broken Russian Martha Timofeievna told me how first there had been a search, and when she had said that an Englishman had lived there the Reds had prodded and torn everything with their bayonets. Then a family of working people had taken possession, fortunately, however, not expelling her from her room. But the flat had not been to their liking, and, deserting it soon after, they took a good many things with them and left everything else upside down.
Between them, the Reds and the uninvited occupants had left very little that could be of use to me. I found no boots or overclothing, but among the litter I discovered some underclothing of which I was glad. I also found an old student hat, which was exactly what I wanted for my postal uniform. I put it in my pocket and, tying the other things in a parcel, said I would send Varia for them next day.
While I was disentangling with my housekeeper’s aid the heap of stuff on the floor I came upon my own photograph taken two or three years before. For the first time I fully and clearly realized how complete was my present disguise, how absolutely different I now appeared in a beard, long hair, and glasses. I passed the photo to Martha Timofeievna.
“That is a good likeness,” I said. “He hasn’t altered one bit.”
“Yes,” she replied. “Was he not a nice man? It is dreadful that he had to go away. I wonder where he is now and what he is doing?”
“I wonder,” I repeated, diving again into the muck on the floor. To save my life I could not have looked at Martha Timofeievna at that moment and kept a straight face.
Failing to obtain an overcoat from the remnant of my belongings, I searched the markets and from a destitute gentleman of aristocratic mien procured a shabby black coat with a worn velvet collar. In this and my student hat I was the “complete postal official.” I adopted this costume for daytime purposes, but before every visit to Zorinsky I went to “No 5,” where I kept what few belongings I possessed, and changed, visiting Zorinsky only in the attire in which he was accustomed to see me.
As the end of January approached my suspicion that Zorinsky would not secure Melnikoff’s release grew. Once or twice he had not even mentioned the subject, talking energetically in his usual vivacious manner about other things. He was as entertaining as ever, and invariably imparted interesting political news, but if I broached the subject of Melnikoff he shelved it at once.
So I resolved, in spite of risks, to see if I could obtain through the Policeman information as to Melnikoff’s case. I had not seen the Policeman since I had returned from Finland, so I told him I had been delayed in that country and had only just come back. Without telling him who Melnikoff was, I imparted to him the data regarding the latter’s arrest, and what I had learned “through accidental channels” as to his imprisonment. I did not let him know my concern, lest he should be inclined purposely to give a favourable report, but charged him to be strict and accurate in his investigation, and, in the event of failing to learn anything, not to fear to admit it.
About a week later, when I phoned to him, he said “he had received an interesting letter on family matters.” It was with trepidation that I hurried to his house, struggling to conceal my eager anticipation as I mounted the stairs, followed by the gaze of the leering Chinaman.
The little Policeman held a thin strip of paper in his hand.
“Dmitri Dmitrievitch Melnikoff,” he read. “Real name Nicholas Nicholaievitch N⸺?”
“Yes,” I said.
“He was shot between the 15th and 20th of January,” said the Policeman.