Byzantium Endures полностью

Some fool went clattering up to it, all spurs and frogging; a military genius who could sit a horse without instantly falling off and was thus a general in Petlyura’s idiot-army. He pulled the switch, of course, before I gave the word. The Voltaics began to arc. The soldier came stumbling back. There was noise and light everywhere. Petlyura screamed and was gone, his men behind him, while I battled with what was left of my equipment. It was impossible to do anything. I opened one of the straw-filled ammunition boxes which had brought my vacuum-tubes. The case still contained a tube. All I needed were the lenses. I began to dismantle them as quickly as possible. Someone returned. There was a pistol shot, the tube on the tripod burst and as I covered my eyes I felt pieces of glass strike my hands and forehead. Another shot was aimed at me. Petlyura evidently wished to be sure the Bolsheviks gained no advantage. It seemed at that moment to be a bizarre act of vengeance. I thought it was Petlyura himself firing. I suppose I was mistaken. I saw flashes of pistol-fire and a dark silhouette. I moved behind one of the columns, onto the outer balcony. All six shots were discharged before the figure ran away. Something was on fire. It was my straw. I tried to pull at least one of the tubes to safety but there was every danger it would overheat and burst and then I should be killed. Electricity still sputtered. The connections had been badly made. My worst danger was from the fire in the straw. I did not save a single lens, a single tube. I moved cautiously down the steps, trying to hear any sound of the assassin. But he was gone. I heard some cars going away. Monks with tapers came and looked at me. They were accusing me. I tried to ask their forgiveness with my eyes but they turned their backs to me. I was too cautious to speak. I still found it hard to believe such hatred and violence had been directed at me. I slipped from the church. A Jew in a skull-cap ran past. He was panting. He held something to him. A bundle. It was a baby, I thought. But it was probably a family heirloom he hoped to save from the new invaders. He was quite young, in his twenties, and sandy-haired. But for his obvious Jewishness, he might have been handsome. When he had gone there was only the heaped, dirty snow. Everything was dead. I moved nervously back towards Kreshchatik but I was hardly bothered at all. The inhabitants had taken to their cellars. All the Haidamaki had gone. I reached The Yevropyaskaya and walked through undefended doors. I went up to my room. There was no one about. My room had been searched. Nothing of any note had been taken. I slipped my diploma, passport and other papers, together with some gold, into a special secret pocket of my trousers. I packed my notes and realised that most of my designs for the machine, together with written descriptions of processes, had gone. I put little packets of cocaine into prepared places in my jacket and waistcoat. I wondered if Petlyura himself had decided to sell my plans to one or other of the opposing forces. There was nothing I could do. I no longer had any concrete proof I had built and tested my ‘death-ray’. I had been thoroughly and cynically betrayed. After some thought, I decided to take what I could and head for the station. It would be dangerous at night. I would wait until-dawn before venturing out. I went to sleep in all my clothes because the heating had been turned off in the hotel. I heard shots. There was yellow blood in my eyes. I writhed in mud. My mother burned. Bronze bubbled through the gorges of Kiev. Suns rose and set over a battlefield which was the whole world. Years went by as I searched for something.

In the morning I looked out of my window and saw Red Army cavalry riding up Kreshchatik.