THE JOURNEY
387
Governor's palace. Two machine
guns,
two iron dogs, stood in
the vestibule with raised
m~zles.
I showed the commandant a
letter from Vanya Kalugin, the N.C.O. under whom I had
served in the Shuisky Regiment. Kalugin, who was now an in–
terrogator in the Cheka, had written me to come.
"Go
to the Anichkov Palace," said the commandant.
"That's where he works now...."
"I'll never make it," I smiled in reply.
Nevsky Prospect flowed into the distance like the Milky
Way. Dead horses punctuated it like milestones. Their raised
legs propped up a low-fallen sky. Their slit bellies gleamed white
and clean.
An
old man who looked like a guardsman went by,
pulling a carved toy sled. Straining forward, he dug his leather
feet into the ice. A Tyrolean hat was perched on
his
head, and
his
beard, tied up with string, was tucked into his scarf.
"I'll never make it," I said to the old man.
He stopped. His furrowed, leonine face was calm. He
thought about his own troubles and went on with his sled.
"And so, there is no longer any need to conquer Peters–
burg," I thought, and tried to recall the name of the man who
was trampled to death by Arab horses at the very end of
his
journey. It was Yehuda Halevi.
Two Chinese in bowler hats, with loaves of bread under
their arms, stood on the corner of the Sadovaya. With frozen
nails they marked off tiny portions of the bread and showed
them to approaching prostitutes. The women went past them in
silent parade.
At the Anichkov Bridge I sat down on a ledge below one of
Klodt's bronze horses. My arm slipped under my head, and I
stretched out on the polished slab. But the granite stung me,
struck me and catapulted me toward the palace.
The door of the cranberry-colored wing was open. A blue
gas light gleamed over the doorman, who was sleeping in a chair.
His lower lip drooped;
his
wrinkled face was inky and deathlike.
Under his brilliantly lit, unbelted
tunic,
he wore court uniform
