Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

Side by side, they continued to recite their lines. Once again Chevanin felt the strange web being woven between the four of them: Smirnov and Madame Popova; Yeliena Mihailovna and himself.

“We’ll fight it out,” he roared. “I’m not going to be insulted by anybody, and I don’t care if you are a woman. One of the softer sex indeed!”

“Bear!” taunted Yeliena Mihailovna. “Bear! Bear!”

“It’s about time to abandon the prejudice that only men must pay for their insults!” he shouted back. “If there is to be damned equality then let us have damned equality. I challenge you!”

Yeliena leapt to her feet.

“You want a duel? Very well!” she declared.

Chevanin looked up at her from his place on the sofa.

She is magnificent, glorious, he thought happily.

“Right now!” he exclaimed aloud.

“Right now!” confirmed Yeliena. “My husband had some pistols. I shall fetch them here. Then I go off and get them and Luka begs you not to kill me.”

There was a knock at the sitting room door and, with a flicker of annoyance, Yeliena called out:

“Enter!”

It was Katya. Did Madame wish to take some tea now and how many cups should be brought?

Surprised, Yeliena Mihailovna glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece.

“Goodness! Look at the time!” she exclaimed. “Yes, you had better serve tea now Katya. Just two cups, I think.”

Pausing only to smile shyly at Chevanin, the maid withdrew but her appearance had broken the spell. Chevanin rose from his place on the sofa and stretched his legs.

“What time do you expect Vasili Semionovich to return?” he asked.

“Oh, he will be some time yet, I think,” replied Yeliena vaguely. “He is probably having a drink with Colonel Izorov. I was just trying to remember… Wait a moment!”

To his surprise, she hurried from the room. A moment later he heard her opening and closing the drawers of the bureau in the Doctor’s study across the hallway. In the time it took him to bend down and place another log on the fire from the neat pile by the hearth, she had returned, waving a large revolver in triumph.

“Look what I’ve found,” she said. “Vasili’s protector!”

Curious, Anton Ivanovich asked if he could examine the weapon. The gun’s weight surprised him and he was conscious of the obvious unfamiliarity with which he was handling it. When he had finished his inspection, he gave it back to her.

“Is it loaded?” he asked.

“I hope not,” she said fervently. “Let us see.”

Expertly breaking the gun, she examined the six empty chambers of the magazine, snapping the gun closed in a business-like manner.

“Horrid thing,” she said, pulling a face.

“Is it very old?”

Yeliena shrugged.

“Vasili said he bought it ten years ago from a veteran. I don’t know how long he had had it. I suppose, strictly speaking, it is still army property, but it is of more use where it is.”

“Does he really use it to shoot wolves?”

“Yes, and virgins,” she teased him.

“I hope it doesn’t shoot hopeless actors as well.”

“It would have done,” she replied quietly, “if he had insisted on Modest Tolkach playing the Bear.”

A few seconds before they had been laughing. Now she searched his face earnestly, the play and the joking forgotten.

“Anton, can you tell me why my husband changed his mind?”

Chevanin gave an embarrassed shrug. He had rehearsed several plausible answers to her question better than he had rehearsed his lines, but now that she had asked him he could only mumble that he did not know. Yeliena took a step towards him and instinctively he retreated from her. She took another step.

“I think you do know,” she insisted. “And I think also that you know you owe me an explanation.”

“You were so unhappy at the prospect,” he said hurriedly, “that I thought you would prefer to play the part with anyone except him. Even with me.”

“Yes?” she prompted.

“So I told Vasili Semionovich that people were saying that Tolkach wasn’t suitable for the part,” he lied, averting his eyes. “I said that he was too old, and too unpopular, to appear opposite you.”

“Is that all? Look at me, Anton.”

Taking hold of his chin, Yeliena Mihailovna gently lifted his head until he was forced to look her in the eye.

“I couldn’t bear the idea of you having to embrace him,” he confessed miserably.

“That was very considerate of you,” she murmured. “Thank you.”

“You mean everything to me… I love you, Yeliena Mihailovna.”

Reaching out, she caressed his cheek affectionately and then moved away and stood looking down into the flames that licked the logs in the hearth. The gun hung loosely in her hand.

“Do you want me to go now?” he asked.