'Oh, Viktor, Viktor,' said Elena, shaking her carefully-brushed diadem of hair, 'you look healthy enough - what made you so feeble yesterday? Sit down and have a cup of tea, it may make you feel better.'

'And you look gorgeous today, Lena, by God you do. That cloak suits you wonderfully, I swear it does', said Myshlaevsky ingratiatingly, his glance darting nervously back and forth to the polished sideboard. 'Look at her cloak, Karas. Isn't it a perfect shade of green?'

'Elena Vasilievna is very beautiful', Karas replied earnestly and with absolute sincerity.

'It's the electric light that makes it look this color', Elena explained. 'Come on, Viktor, out with it - you want something, don't you?'

'Well, the fact is, Lena dearest, I could so easily get an attack of migraine after last night's business and I can't go out and fight if I've got migraine . . .'

'All right, it's in the sideboard.'

'Thanks. Just one small glass . . . better than all the aspirin in the world.'

With a martyred grimace Myshlaevsky tossed back two glasses of vodka one after the other, in between bites of the soggy remains

of last night's dill pickles. After that he announced that he felt like a new-born babe and said he would like a glass of lemon tea.

'Don't let yourself worry, Lena,' Alexei Turbin was saying hoarsely, 'I won't be long. I shall just go and sign on as a volunteer and then I shall come straight back home. Don't worry,*there won't be any fighting. We shall just sit tight here in the City and beat off "president" Petlyura, the swine.'

'May you not be ordered away somewhere?'

Karas gestured reassuringly.

'Don't worry, Elena Vasilievna. Firstly I might as well tell you that the regiment can't possibly be ready in less than a fortnight; we still have no horses and no ammunition. Even when we are ready there's not the slightest doubt that we shall stay in the City. The army we're forming will undoubtedly be used to garrison the City. Later on, of course, in case of an advance on Moscow . . .'

'That's pure guess-work, though, and I'll believe it when I see it . . .'

'Before that happens we shall have to link up with Denikin . . .'

'You don't have to try so hard to comfort me', said Elena. 'I'm not afraid. On the contrary, I approve of what you're doing.'

Elena sounded genuinely bold and confident; from her expression she was already absorbed with the mundane problems of daily life: sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

'Anyuta,' she shouted, 'Anyuta dear, Lieutenant Myshlaevsky's dirty clothes are out there on the verandah. Give them a good hard brush and then wash them right away.'

The person who had the most calming effect on Elena was the short, stocky Karas, who sat there very calmly in his khaki tunic, smoking and frowning.

They said goodbye in the lobby.

'God bless you all', said Elena grimly as she made the sign of the cross over Alexei, then over Karas and Myshlaevsky. Myshlaevsky hugged her, and Karas, his greatcoat tightly belted in at the waist, blushed and gently kissed both her hands.

#

'Permission to report, colonel', said Karas, his spurs clinking gently as he saluted.

The colonel was seated at a little desk in a low, green, very feminine armchair on a kind of raised platform in the front of the shop. Pieces of blue cardboard hat boxes labelled 'Madame Anjou, Ladies' millinery' rose behind him, shutting out some of the light from the dusty window hung with lacy tulle. The colonel was holding a pen. He was not really a colonel but a lieutenant colonel, with three stars on broad gold shoulder-straps divided lengthwise by two coloured strips and surmounted by golden crossed cannon. The colonel was slightly older than Alexei Turbin himself- about thirty, or thirty-two at the most. His face, well fed and clean shaven, was adorned by a black moustache clipped American-style. His extremely lively and intelligent eyes looked up, obviously tired but attentive.

Around the colonel was primeval chaos. Two paces away from him a fire was crackling in a little black stove while occasional blobs of soot dripped from its long, angular black flue, extending over a partition and away into the depths of the shop. The floor, both on the raised platform and in the rest of the shop, was littered with scraps of paper and green and red snippets of material. Higher still, on a raised balcony above the colonel's head a typewriter pecked and clattered like a nervous bird and when Alexei Turbin raised his head he saw that it was twittering away behind a balustrade almost at the height of the shop's ceiling. Behind the railings he could just see someone's legs and bottom encased in blue breeches, but whose head was cut off by the line of the ceiling. A second typewriter was clicking away in the left-hand half of the shop, in a mysterious pit, in which could be seen the bright shoulder-straps and blond head of a volunteer clerk, but no arms and no legs.

Innumerable people with gold artillery badges milled around the colonel. To one side stood a large deal box full of wire and field-telephones, beside it cardboard cases of hand-grenades looking like cans of jam with wooden handles; nearby were heaps of coiled machine-gun belts. On the colonel's left was a treadle

sewing-machine, while the snout of a machine-gun protruded beside his right leg. In the half-darkness at the back of the shop, behind a curtain on a gleaming rail came the sound of a strained voice, obviously speaking on the telephone: 'Yes, yes, speaking . . . Yes, speaking . . . Yes, this is me speaking!' Brrring-drring went the bell . . . 'Pee-eep' squeaked a bird-like field-telephone somewhere in the pit, followed by the boom of a young bass voice:

'Mortar regiment . . . yes, sir . . . yes . . .'

'Yes?' said the colonel to Karas.

'Allow me to introduce, sir, Lieutenant Viktor Myshlaevsky and Doctor Turbin. Lieutenant Myshlaevsky is at present in an infantry detachment serving in the ranks and would like to be transferred to your regiment as he is an artillery officer. Doctor Turbin requests enrolment as the regimental medical officer.'

Having said his piece Karas dropped his hand from the peak of his cap and Myshlaevsky saluted in turn. 'Hell, I should have come in uniform', thought Turbin with irritation, feeling awkward without a cap and dressed up like some dummy in his black civilian overcoat and Persian lamb collar. The colonel briefly looked the doctor up and down, then glanced at Myshlaevsky's face and army greatcoat.

'I see', he said. 'Good. Where have you served, lieutenant?'

'In the Nth Heavy Artillery Regiment, sir', replied Myshlaevsky, referring to his service in the war against Germany.

'Heavy artillery? Excellent. God knows why they put gunnery officers into the infantry. Obviously a mistake.'

'No, sir', replied Myshlaevsky, clearing his throat to control his wayward voice. 'I volunteered because there was an urgent need for troops to man the line at Post-Volynsk. But now that the infantry detachment is up to strength . . .'

'Yes; I quite understand, and I thoroughly approve . . . good', said the colonel, giving Myshlaevsky a look of thorough approval. 'Glad to know you ... So now - ah yes, you, doctor. You want to join us too. Hmm . . .'

Turbin nodded in silence, to avoid saying 'Yes, sir' and saluting in his civilian clothes.

'H'mmm ...' the colonel glanced out of the window. 'It's a good idea, of course, especially since in a few days' time we may be . . . Ye-es . . .' He suddenly stopped short, narrowed his eyes a fraction and said, lowering his voice: 'Only . . . how shall I put it? There is just one problem, doctor . . . Social theories and . . . h'mm . . . Are you a socialist? Like most educated men, I expect you are?' The colonel's glance swivelled uncomfortably, while his face, lips and cajoling voice expressed the liveliest desire that Doctor Turbin should prove to be a socialist rather than anything else. 'Our regiment, you see, is called a "Students' Regiment",' the colonel gave a winning smile without looking up. 'Rather sentimental, I know, but I'm a university man myself.'