第56章

"We would do better to drive away such terrible memories," ventured Gounsovski, lifting his eyelashes behind his glasses, but he bent his head as Annouchka sent him a blazing glance.

"Speak, Galitch."

The Prince did as she said.

"Annouchka had a brother, Vlassof, an engineer on the Kasan line, whom the Strike Committee had ordered to take out a train as the only means of escape for the leaders of the revolutionary troops when Trebassof's soldiers, aided by the Semenowsky regiment, had become masters of the city.The last resistance took place at the station.It was necessary to get started.All the ways were guarded by the military.There were soldiers everywhere! Vlassof said to his comrades, 'I will save you;' and his comrades saw him mount the engine with a woman.That woman was - well, there she sits.Viassof's fireman had been killed the evening before, on a barricade; it was Annouchka who took his place.They busied themselves and the train started like a shot.On that curved line, discovered at once, easy to attack, under a shower of bullets, Vlassof developed a speed of ninety versts an hour.He ran the indicator up to the explosion point.The lady over there continued to pile coal into the furnace.The danger came to be less from the military and more from an explosion at any moment.In the midst of the balls Vlassof kept his usual coolness.He sped not only with the firebox open but with the forced draught.It was a miracle that the engine was not smashed against the curve of the embankment.

But they got past.Not a man was hurt.Only a woman was wounded.

She got a ball in the chest."

"There!" cried Annouchka.

With a magnificent gesture she flung open her white and heaving chest, and put her finger on a scar that Gounsovski, whose fat began to melt in heavy drops of sweat about his temples, dared not look at.

"Fifteen days later," continued the prince, "Viassof entered an inn at Lubetszy.He didn't know it was full of soldiers.His face never altered.They searched him.They found a revolver and papers on him.They knew whom they had to do with.He was a good prize.

Viassof was taken to Moscow and condemned to be shot.His sister, wounded as she was, learned of his arrest and joined him.'I do not wish,' she said to him, 'to leave you to die alone.' She also was condemned.Before the execution the soldiers offered to bandage their eyes, but both refused, saying they preferred to meet death face to face.The orders were to shoot all the other condemned revolutionaries first, then Vlassof, then his sister.It was in vain that Vlassof asked to die last.Their comrades in execution sank to their knees, bleeding from their death wounds.Vlassof embraced his sister and walked to the place of death.There he addressed the soldiers: 'Now you have to carry out your duty according to the oath you have taken.Fulfill it honestly as Ihave fulfilled mine.Captain, give the order.' The volley sounded.Vlassof remained erect, his arms crossed on his breast, safe and sound.Not a ball had touched him.The soldiers did not wish to fire at him.He had to summon them again to fulfill their duty, and obey their chief.Then they fired again, and he fell.

He looked at his sister with his eyes full of horrible suffering.

Seeing that he lived, and wishing to appear charitable, the captain, upon Annouchka's prayers, approached and cut short his sufferings by firing a revolver into his ear.Now it was Annouchka's turn.

She knelt by the body of her brother, kissed his bloody lips, rose and said, 'I am ready.' As the guns were raised, an officer came running, bearing the pardon of the Tsar.She did not wish it, and she whom they had not bound when she was to die had to be restrained when she learned she was to live."Prince Galitch, amid the anguished silence of all there, started to add some words of comment to his sinister recital, but Annouchka interrupted:

"The story is ended," said she."Not a word, Prince.If I asked you to tell it in all its horror, if I wished you to bring back to us the atrocious moment of my brother's death, it is so that monsieur" (her fingers pointed to Gounsovski) "shall know well, once for all, that if I have submitted for some hours now to this promiscuous company that has been imposed upon me, now that I have paid the debt by accepting this abominable supper, I have nothing more to do with this purveyor of bagnios and of hangman's ropes who is here.""She is mad," he muttered."She is mad.What has come over her?

What has happened? Only to-day she was so, so amiable."And he stuttered, desolately, with an embarrassed laugh: