The mindless insanity, so carefully by-passed for so many years, reached out at last and drew him in. Diavilev awoke.
The room was very cold, Pyotr Diavilev struggled into his clothes, not sleepy at all, while the army man stood silently at the foot of the bed. Outside the door, stolid and heavy-footed in the darkness, there were other army men, creaking the floorboards and chuckling.
And so it comes, Diavilev thought. There was nothing at all to say or do. He hitched his belt tightly and breathed for what seemed like the first time, and then he nodded to the army man.
He was taken away.
He sat in the dark, in the plush rear seat of a huge car being driven at great speed through the city. He was surprised; he had expected them to be more brutal. But they were never, ever, what you expected. In the darkness he strove to compose himself.
The army man asked him for a cigarette. When he struck the match Diavilev realized that he had forgotten his glasses.
"My glasses," he said humbly, "please, I have forgotten my glasses."
The army man surprisingly, seemed concerned. Then he said:
"Never mind. We will get them."