In the dilapidated but capacious boots the Doctor found for me I was able to walk slowly without limping. But I used a walking-stick, and this added curiously to my new appearance, which I think may be described as that of an ailing, underfed “intellectual” of the student type. It is a fact that during these days, when in view of my lameness I could not move rapidly, I passed unmolested and untouched out of more than one scuffle when raiders rounded up “speculators,” and crossed the bridges without so much as being asked for my papers.
It took me several days to get thoroughly accustomed to my new exterior. I found myself constantly glancing into mirrors and shopwindows in the street, smiling with amusement at my own reflection. In the course of ensuing weeks and months, I encountered several people with whom I had formerly had connections, and though some of them looked me in the face I was never recognized.
It was about a week later, when walking along the river-quay, that I espied to my surprise on the other side of the road Melnikoff’s friend of Viborg days whom I had hoped to find in Finland—Ivan Sergeievitch. He was well disguised as a soldier, with worn-out boots and shabby cap. I followed him in uncertainty, passing and repassing him two or three times to make sure. But a scar on his cheek left no further doubt. So, waiting until he was close to the gate of the garden on the west side of the Winter Palace, the wall of which with the imperial monograms was being removed, I stepped up behind him.
“Ivan Sergeievitch,” I said in a low voice.
He stopped dead, not looking round.
“It is all right,” I continued; “step into the garden; you will recognize me in a minute.”
He followed me cautiously at some paces distance and we sat down on a bench amongst the bushes. In this little garden former emperors and empresses had promenaded when occupying the Winter Palace. In the olden days before the revolution I often used to wonder what was hidden behind the massive walls and railings with imperial monograms that surrounded it. But it was only a plain little enclosure with winding paths, bushes, and a small fountain.
“My God!” exclaimed Ivan Sergeievitch, in astonishment, when I had convinced him of my identity. “Is it possible? No one would recognize you! It is you I have been looking for.”
“Me?”
“Yes. Do you not know that Zorinsky is in Finland?”
Zorinsky again! Though it was only a week, it seemed ages since I had last crossed the frontier, and the Zorinsky episode already belonged to the distant past—when I was somebody and something else. I was surprised how little interest the mention of his name excited in me. I was already entirely engrossed in a new political situation that had arisen.
“Is he?” I replied. “I went to Finland myself recently, partly to see you about that very fellow. I saw your wife. But nobody seems to know anything about him, and I have ceased to care.”
“You have no notion what a close shave you have had, Pavel Pavlovitch. I will tell you what I know. When I heard from my wife that Varia was arrested and that you were in touch with Zorinsky, I returned to Finland and, although I am condemned by the Bolsheviks to be shot, set out at once for Petrograd. You see, Zorinsky—”
And Ivan Sergeievitch unfolded to me a tale that was strange indeed. I have forgotten some details of it, but it was roughly as follows:
Zorinsky, under another name, had been an officer in the old army. He distinguished himself for reckless bravery at the front and drunkenness in the rear. During the war he had had some financial losses, became implicated in attempted embezzlement, and later was caught cheating at cards. He was invited to resign from his regiment, but was reinstated after an interval in view of his military services. He again distinguished himself in battle, but was finally excluded from the regiment shortly before the revolution, this time on the ground of misconduct. During 1917 he was known to have failed in some grandiose deals of a speculative and doubtful character. He then disappeared for a time, but in the summer of 1918 was found living in Petrograd under various names, ostensibly hiding from the Bolsheviks. Although his business deals were usually unsuccessful, he appeared always to be in affluent circumstances. It was this fact, and a certain strangeness of manner, that led Ivan Sergeievitch to regard him with strong suspicion. He had him watched, and established beyond all doubt that he was endeavouring to gain admission to various counterrevolutionary organizations on behalf of the Bolsheviks.
Shortly afterward, Ivan Sergeievitch was arrested under circumstances that showed that only Zorinsky could have betrayed him. But he escaped on the very night that he was to be shot by breaking from his guards and throwing himself over the parapet of the Neva into the river. In Finland, whither he fled, he met and formed a close friendship with Melnikoff, who, after the Yaroslavl affair and his own escape, had assisted in the establishment of a system of communication with Petrograd, occasionally revisiting the city himself.
“Of course I told Melnikoff of Zorinsky,”
