518
PARTISAN REVIEW
because "me" is not important for you, because I knew this all from
the first moment!
Should God grant this miracle -leave you among the living, I
shall follow you like a dog.
The news is vague, I don't know what to believe. I read about
the Kremlin, Tverskaia, the Arbat, the "Metropol," Voznesensky
Square, the mountains of corpses. In yesterday's (the 1st) issue of the
SR newspaper
Kurskaia Zhizri,
I read that disarmament had begun .
Other papers (today's) write of fighting. I'm not allowing myself the
will to write now - but I've imagined a thousand times how I'll walk
into the house. Will it be possible to enter the city?
Soon we'll be at Oryo!. It's about two in the afternoon now.
We'll be in Moscow at 2 in the morning. And if I walk into the
house - and there's no one there, not a soul? Where shall I look for
you? Perhaps the house is no longer there? I keep feeling-this is a
terrible dream . I keep expecting that any second now something will
happen and there won't have been any newspapers, nothing.
That
I'm dreaming, that I'll wake up .
Throat tight , as if fingers are squeezing it. I keep loosening,
pulling on my collar. Seriozhenka. I've written down your name and
I can't write any more .
* * *
Three days-not a word with anyone. Only with soldiers, to
buy newspapers . (Terrifying rose-colored sheets, sinister. Theatrical
death posters. No-Moscow colored them! They say there's no pa–
per. There was, but they used it all up. (To some that's all there is to
it - to others - it's a sign.)
Finally-someone speaks: "What's wrong Miss? You ain't even
taken a bite of bread the whole trip. I've been on the train with you
since Lozovaia. I keep watching and thinking - when's our young
Miss there going to eat? Then I think, there, she's getting some
bread now - no - writing in that book again . What are you now,
studying for an exam or something?"
I, dimly: "Yes."
The speaker is a workman, black eyes, like coal, a black beard,
something of an affectionate Pugachov. A bit eerie, and pleasant.
We talk. He complains about his sons: "They're infected with this
new life, they've caught this mange. You, Miss, you're a young per–
son, you're likely to see things different, but to my way of think–
ing- all these red rabbles, these obscene freedoms - it's nothing but
a temptation of the Anti"Christ. He's a Prince, and his power is great,
he's just been biding his time, waiting till the right hour's come-
