The White Guard by Mikhail Bulgakov Page A

and kissed her on both cheeks. In the drawing-room the feather duster fell to the ground with a gentle thud. The oddest things always happened to Anyuta whenever Lieutenant Myshlaevsky appeared in the Turbins' apartment. All sorts of household utensils would start slipping from her grasp: if she happened to be in the kitchen knives would cascade to the floor or plates would tumble down from the dresser. Anyuta would look distracted and run out into the lobby for no reason, where she would fiddle around with the overshoes, wiping them with a rag until Myshlaevsky, all cleft chin and broad shoulders, swaggered out again in his blue breeches and short, very low-slung spurs. Then Anyuta would close her eyes and sidle out of her cramped hiding-place in the boot-closet. Now in the drawing-room, having dropped her feather duster, she was standing and gazing abstractedly into the distance past the chintz curtains and out at the gray, cloudy sky.
       'Oh, Viktor, Viktor,' said Elena, shaking her carefully-brushed diadem of hair, 'you look healthy enough - what made you so feeble yesterday? Sit down and have a cup of tea, it may make you feel better.'
       'And you look gorgeous today, Lena, by God you do. That cloak suits you wonderfully, I swear it does', said Myshlaevsky ingratiatingly, his glance darting nervously back and forth to the polished sideboard. 'Look at her cloak, Karas. Isn't it a perfect shade of green?'
       'Elena Vasilievna is very beautiful', Karas replied earnestly and with absolute sincerity.
       'It's the electric light that makes it look this color', Elena explained. 'Come on, Viktor, out with it - you want something, don't you?'
       'Well, the fact is, Lena dearest, I could so easily get an attack of migraine after last night's business and I can't go out and fight if I've got migraine . . .'
       'All right, it's in the sideboard.'
       'Thanks. Just one small glass . . . better than all the aspirin in the world.'
       With a martyred grimace Myshlaevsky tossed back two glasses of vodka one after the other, in between bites of the soggy remains
       of last night's dill pickles. After that he announced that he felt like a new-born babe and said he would like a glass of lemon tea.
       'Don't let yourself worry, Lena,' Alexei Turbin was saying hoarsely, 'I won't be long. I shall just go and sign on as a volunteer and then I shall come straight back home. Don't worry,*there won't be any fighting. We shall just sit tight here in the City and beat off "president" Petlyura, the swine.'
       'May you not be ordered away somewhere?'
       Karas gestured reassuringly.
       'Don't worry, Elena Vasilievna. Firstly I might as well tell you that the regiment can't possibly be ready in less than a fortnight; we still have no horses and no ammunition. Even when we are ready there's not the slightest doubt that we shall stay in the City. The army we're forming will undoubtedly be used to garrison the City. Later on, of course, in case of an advance on Moscow . . .'
       'That's pure guess-work, though, and I'll believe it when I see it . . .'
       'Before that happens we shall have to link up with Denikin . . .'
       'You don't have to try so hard to comfort me', said Elena. 'I'm not afraid. On the contrary, I approve of what you're doing.'
       Elena sounded genuinely bold and confident; from her expression she was already absorbed with the mundane problems of daily life: sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
       'Anyuta,' she shouted, 'Anyuta dear, Lieutenant Myshlaevsky's dirty clothes are out there on the verandah. Give them a good hard brush and then wash them right away.'
       The person who had the most calming effect on Elena was the short, stocky Karas, who sat there very calmly in his khaki tunic, smoking and frowning.
       They said goodbye in the lobby.
       'God bless you all', said Elena grimly as she made the sign of the cross over Alexei, then over Karas and