112
PARTISAN REVIEW
down my throat and strangling me like a man's hand intent on
business. Ah, these heroes who like me were afraid, who had mis–
laid their laughter! Against my will, once again, I yelled.
First I heard shuffling feet. Then, cradled by the battering
wind, the singing of drunken men. Then the oppressed panting of
a straining man. Someone banged his whole weight against the
table, drew away, once more banged against it. I heard boots
scrape the floor-boards, legs treading a circle, and always that
oppressed panting of a horse climbing a steep hill. Someone fought
with the darkness.
All at once, a petal of flame burst in a sheaf of sparks. It
licked the sky, hailed a partner, and together they danced on a
roof. A third linked up with them, then another one, and it looked
as if the corolla of a flower was sailing in the night, hanging from
the sky by sails of fire. The wind, gallopping across the country·
side, officiously pranced around the flower, joyfully whistled, flat·
tened the corolla as though to embrace her. She answered with a
sharp crackle, gave him a petal and he scudded off with it, still
gallopping. They rested on a neighbouring barn and at once
spawned little live flames, litttle live shimmering flames. The sky's
hermetic dome blushed with ecstacy and the entire countryside
began to throb in a rhythm of fire and shadow.
In the artificial daylight I could see the man who was en·
tangled in his own legs; Kolenko was trying to escape. He could
distinguish the doorway outlined against the flames and thrust
towards it, head lowered, his entire body weighted forwards. A
bullet lodged in the nape of his neck. He fell head first, his face
squashed against the threshold he had wanted to cross. His arms
tied behind his back contracted, stiffened like stakes driven into
the earth. The binding rope cracked, cracked, and gave. Suddenly
free, the arms slid alongside the body, like dead branches. A man
cleared the back of his vodka-scorched throat and spat on him,
liberally.
All of them, they came back. All, they began to laugh once
more, merriness shook them like willow branches in a singing
wind, a laugh smelling of fire, of the bullet's soft thud, of spittle.
Fire pulsed in their circulations, it set their blood ·aflame, it set
up a craving for more fire.
Severally they set fire to the bed. Then to the table cloth satu·
rated with vodka. Then, with straw drawn from the mattress, they
