Listen, Kolya by AMABEL WILLIAMS ELLIS

Amabel Williams Ellis

Listen, Kolya! (1917)

SONIA was a conscientious girl, besides being pretty. She simply felt that in such times poor people must hang together. Indeed it was a sort of modest reserve that made her take, rather than ask. She took in the most natural way in the world, knowing very well how open-handed her lady was.

She began doing what she did after one evening when she was at her stepfather’s room. Her old Auntie Pelageya from Jaroslav then gave it out as her belief that that winter – it was 1916 – would go down in history as the year when it was hardest for poor people to geta mouthful of bread.

Aunt Pelageya was old, and she could remember five or six ordinary famines. But now, let rain and sun do their best, there were no men left in the villages, and the horse had all been taken for the war, and god knew how the sowing was to be managed, let alone harvest. In Petrograd and Moscow, bread queues stretched down the dark streets, and cold and hunger were weeding out the weak ones, so that many souls would fly to god before the spring.

After what her Auntie said, Sonia didn’t feel in the least uneasy about taking a little food now and then, especially as the whole apartment was littered with things, that people brought for Madame. The little Countess looked such a fragile small thing for such difficult times, so that Pâté de fois gras, truffles, bottled mushrooms, and little pots of Confiture St. James, seemed necessary if she were to be kept alive. Why, at the flat no one would have known if butter had been used every day to start the stoves. And yet, with all that, Madame was no great eater.

One Saturday evening Marfa the cook had a beautiful roast fowl all ready for Countess Anastasia who was supposed to be in, and alone. the chicken was being kept hot all ready dished up, with the sauce (forced asparagus tips in white wine and melted butter).

The telephone bell rang and Madame herself picked it up: ‘What, last night? So it’s confirmed! Thank God! It was early this morning? I’ll go at once.’

Then in a moment Sonia heard her bell. Madame was already peeling her silk stockings, and as Sonia came into the room she held out her hand for another pair.

‘Sonia, I’m going out immediately… the grey furs.’

She never even sent to tell Marfa that she wouldn’t be in to have supper, although Marfa could plainly be heard whipping sour cream to put on an almond cake. All the time she was dressing the little Countess was telephoning, calling up her three officers and telling them that it had really happened, and that they were to meet her at once, but at once at the Restaurant Constant. Trough all the telephoning, she was also busy with Sonia, holding out her little hand and twiddling her fingers for what she wanted—but each time Sonia had to guess what it might be. One hand, and half Madame’s thoughts were with the telephone and her conversations. She wanted her special grey shoes with the extra high heels… her pears, the spider web brooch. Last of all, after she was almost ready, she decided that she would change her dress; for the one that was all layers and layers of grey chiffon. She was quite right to wear it too, Sonia thought, for she looked exquisite when she was dressed. So young!

She had a round face and a pointed chin; the grey fur made her look like some bright-eyed little creature—a fox cub perhaps, or a kitten, or, perhaps after all she looked more like a little girl who waits excitedly on tiptoe till it’s time to start for the party.

She would not use her car, the Countess said, but sent Dimitry out to get her a sledge. He got the one she often took, with a fine horse, of the Don breed, and a driver in a well-padded blue cloth coat—it was a business getting her packed into the sledge. At the last moment she sent Sonia back for a bunch of Parma violets that one of her colonels had sent that morning. Everybody helped to get her off, Marfa and Dimitry as well as Sonia. People liked to wait on her; it was a pleasure to see her go off looking so nice. Each of them thought, seeing her shining eyes, of what they had heard as she telephoned. At last something had happened, and there was something big to show for all that coming and going of the previous days. There were Important People mixed up with what she was doing, but even without the, you could be sure with Countess Anastasia Alexandrovna Bogaveska—you could be sure, for all she was so fond of amusement—gipsies and tango and jazz—you could be perfectly sure that all her plottings were really for the Honour of Russia! That was what her own servants felt, and they ought to have known, for they had a pretty good idea, in spite of disguises, who went in and out both by day and by night—and that was more than the secret police—the Okrana—knew by a very long way, or all they sometimes kept a watch on the flat for days and nights at a time. so the three servants stood thinking, looking through the glass door at the lights in the streets, and at Countess Anastasia disappearing in her sledge.

They turned around and went back in. They were feeling proud, accomplished. There was the little Countess gone like a grey snowflake, and there was the chicken and the sauce made of butter, white wine, and asparagus tips, not gone at all, but still there, perfectly whole! Now as Marfa said, there was nothing that Madame hated worse than cold chicken, while as for doing that chicken up in a Bechamelle sauce, it had really already been kept hot too long for that. So they sat down and finished it off, chicken, sauce, and all, not to speak of the almond cake with whipped cream, and very good they found it all. Marfa breathed and sighed as if she were drawing a plough, instead of sitting at the table and picking chicken bones. Some cooks don’t relish their meals and prefer not to eat them, but Marfa at meals was a picture herself.

When Madame went off like that, she never came home till late. Plotting, it seems, takes a long time, and it’s better accomplished in the dark. So Dimitry took himself off out—and Marfa shut herself up in the drawing room—not to drink vodka out of the tantalus, oh dear no!—Sonia smiled for she knew what old Marfa did. She shut herself up like that in the drawing room in order to drape her fatness in the Caucasian scaraves and embroideries that lay about on the sofas there. Then, with all the lights turned on, she peacocked about the room looking in all the looking glasses. Sonia had seen her through the keyhole, but had never mentioned it to anybody.

With Dimitry gone, and Marfa accounted for, Snoia, who was tidying the mistress’s bedroom, began to think:

(1) Madame might have been in;

(2) Then she would have had chicken;

(3) Then they would have had something else;

(4) Then the something else must still be there.

It got on Sonia’s nerves sometimes thinking of her mother standing all night, and sometimes half the next day, in those bread queues. It was too much in the winter. The frost had been very bad lately, and to stand in a queue from one or two in the morning till noon, or even evening, next day, was too much for the old woman. Marfa had people of her own, home in Samara, so she knew how things were. She was very nice aout letting Sonia have stuff, but Sonia didn’t want to be too much beholden, so often she preferred to take it.

This time the larder shelf proved that the servants’ dinner was to have been only buckwheat kasha with lard. However, it was nice easy stuff, not like a joint of meat which shows where you cut it. She wrapped up her head, slipped on her boots, put the basin under her coat, felt the wind cut her face, felt her legs grow almost numb under her skirt. She stood at last in her stepfather’s room. It frightened Sonia to see the way they ate; today it came over her specially. She had something that she wanted very much to tell them, but it was impossible to speak yet. They were eating like wolves. They all ate except her brother Kolya.

Kolya was on night shift at the Putilov metal works. He lay all day on a little iron cot in the corner of the room, and woke up about supper time. he generally refused the food she brought, and only ate bits of black bread. He had a bad taste in his mouth from the heavy work and sleeping all day. it must be that, for though he might want to stand away from his stepfather’s family—why should he be stand-off with his own sister?

Sonia, waiting for them to raise their noses from their plates, saw the group and the room. There was nothing remarkable: it was like a dozen other porters’ lodges, a small square room with a table against one wall (under a window shrouded with muslin), beds against the three other walls, on the sill plants in pots tied up with red wool, and with paper flowers stuck among their leaves, the icons and their lamp in one corner—a coloured picture of the Tsar in another.

Kolya, in shirt and pants, was yawning and twisting about on his bed; at the table their mother with her head in a grey shawl, the porter with his cap pushed to the back of his head, and a mixed collection of children. Their heads were bent close above the brown oilcloth, where the white plates lay like reflected street lamps on a wet pavement. As they spooning up the last of it, Sonia came over. She couldn’t keep but news any longer.

‘Rasputin’s dead!’ she said. Her stepfather dropped his spoon.

‘Not the Staretz?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Everybody’ll know about it soon. He’s been murdered!’

Sonia’s mother got up and went over to the corner where the icons were; the old woman bowed and crossed herself. Sonia flushed.

‘You didn’t ought to do that, mother!’ she said hotly, ‘He was a bad man. My Barina, Countess Anastasia, was against Grigori Rasputin.’

‘He needs all the prayers he can get if he was bad… You don’t know what you’re talking about!’ said her mother.

‘No, he was a bad man,’ said Sonia and shut her red mouth. The children chimed in, asking questions. Sonia didn’t really know more than the fact. The old porter shook his head.

‘They say that Grigori Rasputin was the one who kept the Tsarevitch alive.’

‘He himself had taken the sins of all Russia upon him,’ said her mother. ‘Will all the sins come back on us now, or, poor soul, does he carry them with him?’

Sonia had got up and had taken there steps to where Kolya lay in his corner facing the wall. She took him by the shoulder.

‘Listen, Kolya! Do you hear! Grigori Rasputin has been murdered…’ She felt annoyed that Kolya should be taking no notice of her news. ‘Or… do you know already?’

The young man turned, opened his eyes and said, yawning, ‘How should I know anything about it?’

She was baffled. There was something more about Kolya. What could there be that she didn’t know about? Didn’t she know how Kolya lived? Was it a girl? She answered her mother and stepfather mechanically.

‘No, mother, no one knows who did it.’—‘No, the body hasn’t been found.’—‘No, no one knows how your Staretz died.’

II

A WEEK later Sonia brought them a tin of some sort of pink beef. Countess Anastasia’s three officers had begun to collect more serious food for her than truffles; that was in case things got worse.

The news of Rasputin’s death was all over the town. The sort of men who read newspapers, and the sort of women who wore hats, and said a few words of French when they met their acquaintances, were all glad, and the most awful tales were now told openly about the things that had been done by the holy man. Ravishings, feastings, bribes, buffooneries, and revenges. There was nearly a holiday in the city over his death, and women lit candles in the churches.

The poor people were not so sure about the facts of the case. It wasn’t that they didn’t believe the stories, in fact they thought some of them were rather funny. Some of his goings on were even bad, of course. But they were troubled by Rasputin’s death because it seemed to them that, after all, he had been a poor man—he had once been poor at least. While he was alive there was always a poor man to speak with the Tsar and the Tsaritza. If he hadn’t been all a man ought to be, still he knew how poor people lived. It was because he spoke the truth about Russia that the great men at court had killed him.

Then there were the prophecies about the Tsar and the Tsarevitch. The Staretz himself had said to the Tsar: ‘If I die, or you desert me, you will lose your crown and your son within six months.’

Another point was, had the Staretz really take the sins of all Russia upon him, and if so where were they now? And there was the question of miracles.

Sonia’s mother begged her to tell her how Rasputin died.

‘If only we knew how he died!’ she kept on repeating. Sonia began to tell her what was being said at Countess Anastasia’s. The Staretz, they said, had been lured one evening to Prince Yussipov’s empty palace. There was one of the young Grand Dukes in it, too.

They had got Rasputin to come, it was said, by pretending that he was to meet Princess Yussipov who was a celebrated beauty. The Holy Man had been all dressed up for this encounter in wide velvet trousers, and a silk embroidered tunic and sash that the Tsariza had made him.

There were said to have been three or four of them I the plot, Prince Dimitry, Prince Yussipov, Pureskevitch, an officer, and a Polish doctor. They had got ready a dish of poisoned cakes and some glasses of Marsala; they had put in great quantity of the poison—far more than was needed. But Rasputin was a great fat man, as everyone knew, and he had scared them all, for he had eaten and drunk enough of the poison to have killed ten men, and he had felt none the worse for the feast. Some said it only made him sick and that he thought nothing of that, for such a thing was common in his feastings. At any rate, there was the poison all gone, and some of it at least inside the Staretz, and he had not even known what they were trying to do, but had only become impatient waiting for Princess Yussipov, and upstairs Prince Dimitry and the other three moved about, and played guest, while below, Prince Yussipov told Rasputin that the others were soon going, and that then his wife would be down directly. But at last Prince Yussipov, who, they said, was a little slender man, had felt afraid when the poison did not work. Suppose Rasputin got suspicious, knocked him down, and got out of the house? Pretending to go and hurry the Princess, he went upstairs and consulted the others, leaving Rasputin alone pacing about impatiently. The doctor said the poison was bound to work sooner or later, so there was no getting out of it (as they now longed to do). so now, as they consulted, it seemed that the only way was to shoot the Staretz, blood or no blood, since things had gone so far. So they all three went at once down to the lower room, and there, as Rasputin stood with Yussipov’s jewelled crucifix in his hand, they shot him full of bullets. (Sonia’s mother crossed herself.) Then it was said that leaving him for dead, they went to fetch the Grand Duke’s car to get the body away. When they came back, the room was empty, only a trail of blood led out, some said to the garden, some of the snowy roof. Anyhow, outside at last, in the snow, they shot at him again, and Prince Yussipov battered his head in with a bronze candlestick. And now they said that the Tsaritza had had the body taken to the Palace—to Tsarskoe Selo. It was said that she had sewn a shroud herself and had had him buried by torchlight in great splendour. There was to be a chapel raised over him.

‘What about Karally, the dancer?’ said Sonia’s stepfather. ‘They say she was there, and they say too, in the town, that while he was being killed there was one of the Tsar’s young ladies—one of the young Grand Duchesses—to see it done… in revenge of her honour.’

At this time the old porter had been stuffing pink beef into his mouth along with black bread.

‘No, Sonia,’ said the mother at last, shaking her head. ‘You don’t understand. All this is what they say in the town… But how did Grigori die?’

‘What your mother is getting at is the next part of the tale:’ said the old porter nodding. ‘Was Grigori Rasputin still breathing when they shoved him under the ice of the Neva?’

‘Why ever does she want to know that?’ said Sonia absent-mindedly, turning her eye to the corner where Kolya lay, to see if he wouldn’t take notice of tale or beef. He was sitting up on the mattress rubbing his eyes. Had he been listening? He reached out for his socks and began to pull them on, getting ready on night shift again. He was a silent as a mule under his black forelock.

‘Why ever does your mother want to know that?’ repeated the porter. ‘Isn’t it natural… they don’t teach you everything at Countess Anastasia’s. Your mother wants to know, was Rasputin breathing when they poked him under the ice? For then the case is that he was drowned, and, as your mother very well knows, no drowned person can be a saint, and the relics of them can’t never work no miracles, and the Empress has saved up that bloody tunic he was shot in, all for nothing.’

But Sonia has gone over to Kolya and sat down by him, twiddling a button on the breast of his shirt as she spoke.

‘Kolya!’ she exclaimed, fixing her eyes on him. ‘Kolya, my Barina was in this – right in it.’ Sonia spoke very low so that the others shouldn’t hear. ‘D’you still say you don’t believe we’ll ever do anything? Listen, Kolya! Grigori Rasputin was the biggest man in Russia, and the wickedest; no one could touch him. Then, at last, those that my Barina is with, said that he had to die! He died.’

Kolya looked at her, his face shut, shuttered, and inexpressive. He shook his head.

‘Rubbish!’ he said. ‘That’s all rubbish!’ That was Kolya all over. It had been just like that when they were children. Just because she said it he didn’t believe it!

Sonia was so angry that, bread queues or no bread queues, she didn’t go near them for a fortnight.

III

IT might have been thought by anyone who had been watching what went on at the little Countess’s, that Grigory Rasputin’s death would have been the end. Prince Yussipov and Prince Dimitry were banished out of Petrograd, one to his estates, the other to the Persian border.

But it seemed that cyanide of potassium, revolver bullets, bronze candlesticks, and the Neva ice had accomplished next to nothing, for if the holy Staretz was dead, there was no change. All the people who had been his friends – ecclesiastics, ministers, ladies, all were kept in power, and all flourished at the Court. One set of the Staretz’s friends even benefited. It was a great day for those who had skill in talking with the Tsaritza, or Mme. Virubova or old Prince Kurakin, to go on governing Russia and helping in the conduct of the war. When anything of special importance was communicated by the spirit of Rasputin, the Minister of the Interior or the Minister of Justice would be sent for to receive their instructions from the frothing medium.

So now, it seemed to the conspirators, that the trouble lay deeper. The death of this man had affected nothing. ‘The drawing-room insurrection’, as some called it, grew instead of vanishing away. Discontent was in the air.

Such Important Personages came in, that it might have been supposed that a young woman like Countess Anastasia would have been quite left behind, and indeed she began to count for no more than a messenger – she and her three colonels. But still they were in everything, for they had worked out a complete scheme of codes and passwords, disguises and so on… perhaps (because Countess Tassya was young, and the colonels very much in love) even a little more than had been necessary.

But now, how well that turned out! For she and her three, were proud and pleased to be able to help the High Personages in their mission of working for the honour of Russia, and they were able in some degree to teach them how to hide what they were doing – for to tell the truth, they were several among the Exalted Personages who had very little idea of how to set about anything that was not absolutely simple.

Trust bred trust. Madame had had to trust Sonia in the Past, and, things being now much more complicated, she didn’t stop when this new stage was reached. Hiding from the secret police – the Okrana – is always rather an effort, and in plotting you have to trust somebody. Besides, all this aside, Countess Anastasia could never have hidden things from any one who had access to her dressing room and clothes – to be really secret you have also to be remarkably tidy, and she was young and careless and left everything about. It was Sonia, and not the Countess, who saw that the flat was always ready for the Okrana in case they took it into their heads to search it. One day they did.

‘The key of your bureau, madame!’

‘You’ll find nothing in it but love letters!’ said the little Countess looking up with her big eyes. It was true; she had left the really incriminating documents lying about. But Sonia had them safe.

But why, asked the secret police, were there no papers in the flat about the Scheme for Providing more milk for Orphans in State Institutions? Madame was secretary of that association? The many meetings and the continued interest of so many Exalted Personages and the absence of papers and of the least drop of milk seemed odd to the police somehow.

So another cloak had to be found for all the meetings. They hit upon the idea that a play might be acted for charity. There could surely be no question in anybody’s mind about how many rehearsals and preliminaries might be necessary when Exalted Personages did theatricals? This time they were rather thorough, thinking that their lives may depend on that thoroughness. Sonia helped with the dresses besides carrying notes backwards and forwards—it was inconvenient to use the telephone. Some of the caste dresses were really made, and at meetings they often dressed up in them. Sonia used to think with awe how the lives of these ladies and gentlemen might depend at any moment on the look of completeness and reality that they could give to their play. It must be impossible, this time for the Okrana to say that they were using a blind.

One day, as they went off to a rehearsal, Countess Anastasia looked across the Neva at the Fortress of Peter and Paul.

‘Will you still look after my dresses when I live there, Sonia?’ Sonia caught her Barina’s little hand in its scented glove, kissed it, kissed her shoulder, and said she would. She was a good affectionate girl and would have done it too; though lately the fact that she knew so much had begun to frighten her. She had to keep reminding herself that her lady was really loyal, only in a very special way, and that all she did was for the good of the Royal Family as a whole even if… After all, so many of the Grand Dukes and Princesses wouldn’t have been in it if there had been anything wrong… though even when it came to actually deposing… and then all their own lives hanging on it| Another thing that frightened Sonia was that although these Court people were so great, yet they didn’t seem always to set about things in the very best way.

However, it did occur to them after a while that it was dangerous to go on rehearsing a play all about Paul I, the Tsar that his sons and ministers murdered… After all, why do such a play when his time there was an absolute understanding that no blood was to be split? So they decided to have another play. First they chose one called Richard II by an English author called Shakespeare, about some king or other, but someone said that that was too plain. Then they altered again to one they called The Mousetrap. Sonia couldn’t make out why it was called that, nor what the play was about at all. In any case, those that met had only one meaning in whatever they did. They meant that the Tsar should abdicate. They were agreed about the abdication, but it was difficult to get some other points fixed.

For instance, the Tsar was Commander-in-Chief of the armies. Sometimes he was at Tsarskoe Selo, sometimes at Army Headquarters (Stavka they called it); sometimes he was away for weeks in his train touring the front. Where would be the best place to confront him? Who was to be their emissary? What was to be done first, in case of his refusal? Whom was to be made to nominate as the new Tsar? It was at this stage that the difficulty came in. Every day they said that important facts had changed, so that what was decided one day was abandoned the next.

Soon there were almost as many plans as plotters. Sometimes there would be long waits between the different meetings while a messenger or even a Personage went to consult someone with the Armies or at Stavka. For even the Exalted Ones knew that all this was very little good unless a sufficient section of the High Command gave its consent.

Very little could be written down, and sometimes Sonia would hear the smallest of the three Colonels pacing up and down the dining room of the Countess’ flat learning off some message by heart.

Sometimes it seemed to them that everything was going on well, that everything would soon be settled, and that with almost the whole of the Imperial Family against him. Nicholas would not sit another three days on the throne of Russia! Soon there would be a new Tsar, then everything would be changed; the Wicked should be Punished; the Honour of Russia would be Saved; Glorious Victories would be won at the front; and the people at home would no longer starve. Such prospects made up for the fatigues that they all endured.

Sonia was often afraid to talk to her stepfather or her mother. She felt she carried too many secrets about her to dare to talk to those who knew her so well. Surely her mother might somehow read her thoughts. Besides, she was still nettled by Kolya’s behaviour, and used to frown over it when she was alone. but she would be justified when at last the plots were hatched. Then they would know!—though perhaps (she shuddered at the thought) they would know in the wrong way… though their all being caught.

Meantime, the bread queues were as bad as ever. There were very few signs of spring, except the lengthening days. Indeed the horses in the streets seemed to wear an armour of frost crystals over their chests and bellies, and the thermometer fell and fell, though it was nearly March. Still the women stood all night in the bread queues. So Sonia still took a bit of something from time to time to the porter’s lodge. One evening she took home a pile of blini. Marfa gave them to her—they had got tough as leather through being kept waiting. She also gave her a bit of pickled cabbage to make a relish.

At the porter’s lodge they gobbled without a word; the old woman had a tear or two on her face. Sonia waited without saying much. Kolya on his bed yawned and stretched, pulled on his socks, tightened his belt, pulled on his boots, took his ragged cap and sheepskin from the nail, and was ready for the factory.

When he pulled open the door Sonia slipped out beside him. She had almost to trot to keep up with him as he strode heavy and sleepy along the street.

‘Listen, Kolya!’ she said. ‘I want to tell you something. Any day I may get shut up in prison now. I feel you must know!’

Kolya grunted, looking down sidelong at her.

‘I’ll tell you what I’ve told no one else. You won’t betray me. The Tsar is going to abdicate. It’s arranged… perhaps in a few weeks.’

Kolya shook his head. She was furious! She turned to face him, blocking his way, stamping her foot on the hard ice of the street.

‘I tell you it’s true, Kolya!’

He stood with his feet planted looking down at her, and once more he shook his head. She seized his arm, shouting: ‘Kolya, why won’t you believe anything I say, or treat me seriously! I’m not a little girl anymore! It’s all because you’re ignorant and don’t know what’s going on!’ hearing her ready to cry Kolya looked at her curiously.

‘Funny little Sonyechka!’ he said at last.

They still stood confronted, she so vehement. Even if he were a rock, he would have to speak to her. At last his face began to work. Suddenly he burst out shouting, so loud that Sonia was frightened…

‘Sonia! You little fool! little dupe! That Barina of yours! Nor her three officers! Nor her passwords! Nor her mysteries! Will ever to anything that amounts to anything—so for God’s sake shut up! He stopped, his fists clenched and breathing hard.

‘How do you know?’ she whispered.

Kolya looked at her, but then immediately began to walk again, as fast as possible. Sonia began to trot again, as persistent as when they were both children.

‘How do you know? How do you know?’ she wouldn’t let him alone.

‘They won’t have time!’ Kolya began to shout again. ‘Something else is coming. Something very big!’

He strode on quickly, but at last, his face working, came to a stand by a canal. A factory higher up poured warm water into it, so that the ice was not solid. In the middle, dark water reflected the street lamps. Kolya began excitedly to pull off the icicles that hung under the balustrade and hurl them at the patch of dark water. His shouts were punctuated by icicled that plopped, or falling short, slithered along the ice.

‘There’s something coming, not from Grand Dukes, nor from Stavka… a voice that they haven’t heard for years, that they’ve never heard. It’s not going to be this Tsar or that!... A new arm and a new fist…’ Kolya was yelling now at the top of his voice.

They were no longer alone. slowly strolling towards them came a policeman. Sonia pulled her brother’s sleeve. Her nerves twanged at the sight of that uniform, yet he took no notice but went on shying icicled will all his might and shouting about the Fleet and the Army. Behind them, echoing from the high walls of a warehouse, Sonia could hear the tramp of mor feet. Slowly the policeman came on, eyeing them. when he was level with them he stopped, and it seemed to Sonia that he took a grip of something with a hand that he held behind his back. As the man stood poised like that, Kolya finally caught sight of him. He dropped his icicle, and, pouncing suddenly, he pulled the braided cap off the man’s head and, with a yell, flung it into the canal. The cap bobbed twice, and was sucked under the ice. Everyone watched open-mouthed. Then Sonia hid her eyes, and heard how, behind Kolya’s back, the tramp of feet came on. She pressed herself against the balustrade. Still nothing happened. Miraculously the feet passed. She looked around. Everything was quiet now. The policeman had vanished; Kolya had gone too, merged with the group of workmen who had just passed—part of the night shift going to the Putilov works. So the policeman had not dared…? She was awestruck. What had happened?

The men’s heavy tread sounded an answer, drums to the brass of the factory hooter which now began to sound a cacophonous warning across the water.