His wife, Elena Ivanovna, a jolly little creature, but very much of a spoilt child, appeared at dinner dressed in a pink Japanese kimono. The table was daintily set and decked with flowers. As at Vera Alexandrovna’s café, I again felt myself out of place, and apologized for my uncouth appearance.
“Oh! don’t excuse yourself,” said Elena Ivanovna, laughing. “Everyone is getting like that nowadays. How dreadful it is to think of all that is happening! Have the olden days gone for ever, do you think? Will these horrid people never be overthrown?”
“You do not appear to have suffered much, Elena Ivanovna,” I remarked.
“No, of course, I must admit our troupe is treated well,” she replied. “Even flowers, as you see, though you have no idea how horrible it is to have to take a bouquet from a great hulking sailor who wipes his nose with his fingers and spits on the floor. The theatre is just full of them, every night.”
“Your health, Pavel Ivanitch,” said Zorinsky, lifting a glass of vodka. “Ah!” he exclaimed with relish, smacking his lips, “there are places worse than Bolshevia, I declare.”
“You get plenty of vodka?” I asked.
“You get plenty of everything if you keep your wits about you,” said Zorinsky. “Even without joining the Communist Party. I am not a Communist,” he added (somehow I had not suspected it), “but still I keep that door open. What I am afraid of is that the Bolsheviks may begin to make their Communists work. That will be the next step in the revolution unless you Allies arrive and relieve them of that painful necessity. Your health, Pavel Ivanitch.”
The conversation turned on the Great War and Zorinsky recounted a number of incidents in his career. He also gave his views of the Russian people and the revolution. “The Russian peasant,” he said, “is a brute. What he wants is a good hiding, and unless I’m much mistaken the Communists are going to give it to him. Otherwise the Communists go under. In my regiment we used to smash a jaw now and again on principle. That’s the only way to make Russian peasants fight. Have you heard about the Red army? Comrade Trotzky, you see, has already abolished his Red officers, and is inviting—inviting, if you please—us, the ‘counter-revolutionary Tsarist officer swine,’ to accept posts in his new army. Would you ever believe it? By God, I’ve half a mind to join! Trotzky will order me to flog the peasants to my heart’s content. Under Trotzky, mark my words, I would make a career in no time.”
The dinner was a sumptuous banquet for the Petrograd of the period. There was nothing that suggested want. Coffee was served in the drawing-room, while Zorinsky kept up an unceasing flow of strange and cynical but entertaining conversation.
I waited till nearly ten for the call from Zorinsky’s friend with regard to Melnikoff, and then, in view of my uncertainty as to whether the Journalist’s house would still be open, I accepted Zorinsky’s invitation to stay overnight. “There is no reason,” he said, “why you should not come in here whenever you like. We dine every day at six and you are welcome.”