Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

Saddened, he turned north and flew over Menshikov Street and Ostermann Street, passing so close to his own house that he could see the grain on the roof timbers. The bell of the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary began to toll ominously and out of the corner of his eye he could see that the crowd in the market square had grown in size until it could be numbered in hundreds. Slowly at first and then faster and faster it began to follow him, its countless feet raising clouds of dust as it surged this way and that, trying to anticipate his next change of direction. A few, not watching where they were going, were stumbling and falling and were being trampled underfoot by the rest of the crowd. He worried that they might be badly hurt and he would be blamed.

Although he knew that the crowd could not catch him as long as he flew at this altitude, something was preventing him from flying back over their heads. He was being forced always to move away from them. Relentlessly they drove him away from the town, towards the river. Looking beyond the river, he saw the distant line of trees in the wood and sensed that if he could reach them he would be safe. He could sit in a treetop and wait for them to tire and abandon their pursuit. He flew faster, skimming over the brown waters of the Ob, racing for the cover of the trees.

The shouting had died down behind him. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw that the crowd had stopped at the riverbank. Since they were no longer pursuing him, he began to slacken his speed. Deep within himself he felt a twinge of foreboding. Something was wrong: the citizens of the town had not been stopped by the waters of the river; rather, they were standing along its bank as if waiting for something to happen. Uneasy now, he turned his gaze back to the oncoming trees as he skimmed across the uncultivated belt of marshland. Too late, he spotted the line of hunters waiting patiently for him to fly into their sights. As if by some prearranged signal, he saw them raise their guns as one and fire. Noiseless puffs of smoke mushroomed from their barrels. Desperate, he twisted away, trying to climb out of range as fast as he could. The first bullets began to spiral past him, humming like angry bees. He twisted his body this way and that, trying to evade them, but there were too many. He felt one smash into his ribs and was surprised to find that its impact had not hurt him. Still he flew on, beginning to enjoy himself once more. Then a second bullet hit him squarely in the small of his back and suddenly his arms had lost their strength, sending his body crashing to the ground.

Lying pinned between the bed frame and the wall, he was still uncertain as to whether he was still dreaming or he had died in his sleep and gone to the Kingdom of Eternal Night. Either was possible. Wherever he was, it was certainly very dark.

He began to struggle feebly, his temples breaking out in a cold sweat as he found that he could not move. It seemed that his body was trapped in some terrible vice. Hanging head downwards, his naked hindquarters were exposed in a way that made him defenceless. By careful experimentation, he found that he could move his head a few degrees to the left or right but, in doing so, he made the mistake of inhaling some of the dust that lay in thick balls under the iron bedstead. Unable to raise either of his arms which were pinned to his side to brush the dust away, he sneezed violently five or six times, each sneeze forcing his body deeper into the gap. From somewhere above him he heard the rasp of a match being struck. He went cold with fear. What was going to happen to him next?

The darkness became perceptibly lighter; someone had lit a candle. Instinctively he began to relax as the memory of the afternoon’s lovemaking flooded back to him.

“Masha?” he called hopefully.

Holding the candle high over the bed, Matriona Pobednyeva studied the two large dimpled buttocks that were all that were visible of her husband.

“So,” she observed drily, “it speaks.”

“Matriona, help me up will you?”

Lowering the candle onto the bedside table, she stooped and she picked up her discarded clothes.

“So why should I?” she demanded as she began to dress.

“For God’s sake, help me. I can’t breathe.”

“How do I know that you don’t have a woman down there?”

“Masha, I’m warning you!”

She grinned at the quivering cheeks as he struggled vainly to extricate himself.

“Perhaps I would prefer to dine with Modest Andreyevich alone. We could talk about all sorts of things. Like how he murdered his wife, for instance. Poor woman!”

“That was never proved!” came the muffled reply.

“Everybody knows that he killed her, Tolly. And you invite him into our house and expect me to be polite to him.”

“She was very ill, even before she went into the hospital,” insisted the voice. “She had the best available treatment. A private room, everything.”