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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] the fact that he could hear and smell the Karelian bear-hounds, kept no more than a room or two away on the ground level of the house. Zagarin on his repeated visits delivered various political, social, and religious opinions, sometimes in the form of a stern lecture. One night the colonel, quite drunk, paid a late visit, with bottle in hand and a drunken prostitute on his arm. He still wanted Sherwood to confess, once more by simply nodding his head, that he was in fact a secret agent of the American government. The prostitute thought the whole thing the business of talking to a bear was hilariously funny; she sat down on the floor in the corridor outside the cell, and laughed and laughed. Trying to maintain his dignity, and probably retaining some shreds of caution, the colonel was content, for the time being, not to press the matter. Page 173 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html "I will of course want to hear the details later, when you are sufficiently healed to take the form of man again." Sherwood slowly shook his massive head from side to side. The gashes left by wolfish fangs were healing, perhaps more swiftly than anyone had anticipated. Animals and civilized humans had quite different ways of dealing with pain and disability. Soon he was allowed out of his dim cell, to be taken for a walk within the security compound on a light chain linked to his silver nose ring. The colonel seemed to have no serious trouble believing in were-bears, just as he in his own way believed in all of the other accoutrements of mystical Mother Russia. Colonel Zagarin, like his colleagues, the other district chiefs of eastern Siberia, ruled for the most part with a great deal of independence from the authorities in the great cities in the west. Presently he mentioned to Sherwood a certain impending event of great importance. The Minister himself, Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin, was coming to visit Irkutsk in person, as part of a tour of inspection. Stolypin was generally acknowledged the second most powerful man in the empire, after only the Holy Tsar himself. The colonel was amused by Maxims telegraphed orders, demanding repeatedly that the woman with the trained bear called Napoleon should be arrested. Zagarin considered just what kind of reply he might send to Maxim Ivanovich, telling him that his sister was now living in Zagarin's house and hinting that the great plot had been discovered. Sherwood overheard enough to make him realize that Zagarin was locked in a vicious struggle with Maxim, among other men on the same level of the bureaucracy, in a perpetual rivalry for position and importance. Sherwood's worries about Natalya were mounting swiftly once again. He had not seen her for several days, not since that first visit in Zagarin's presence. Twenty-seven Before dawn one morning Sherwood, finding himself alone and unobserved, the darkened lower portion of the house seemingly deserted, tested the strength of one of the iron bars which kept him in his cell. To his great surprise and secret joy, he discovered that if he pushed hard, the metal interpenetrated the were-bear flesh of his foreleg without doing any harm. The temptation to try the experiment with his whole body was irresistible, and a moment later he was standing in the dark corridor outside his cell. Page 174 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html But he was still muzzled and bound with silver. And there were the dogs. And, somewhere nearby, Natalya, without whom he could not leave. Escape was going to have to wait. In another moment, Sherwood was back inside the cell. He couldn't tell how much time had passed since his capture he guessed three weeks or a month. Winter had certainly settled in, though in his fur he was almost uncomfortably warm, out of the wind in the unheated cellar. Anyway, his physical healing was virtually complete. Now he had to get free of his silver nose ring and collar. And let Natalya know how matters stood. Eva was still visiting the prisoner an average of once a day. She was treating the bear like a pet now, calling him "Misha" and the fact that Sherwood could think of no explanation for this name worried him unreasonably. He knew he had real things to worry about. He felt sure that as soon as he was sufficiently healed, Zagarin would insist upon his resuming man-form and answering some questions. Meanwhile, Eva seemed to have no suspicion that he was anything but a pure beast. In Sherwood's presence she sometimes fretted aloud, in a mixture of French and Russian, about what her master might be planning to do with his captive Bear. "The trouble is, I don't know what my Sasha intends to do with you& there are only two reasons, dear Misha, why he might want to keep you. And at least one of them would be terrible. No, I can't allow him to do that!" And reaching in through the iron bars, she impulsively, fearlessly, hugged the puzzled Bear around the neck. With the sounds (laughter, song, dancing feet on hollow boards, the occasional crash of glass or crockery) of yet another of the almost nightly parties drifting down from the upper levels of the house, Sherwood began thinking furiously of some means by which he might influence Zagarin's mistress to set him free. There came down also the smells of sweaty bodies, perfume, food, and liquor. His nose ring was not a solid circle of metal, but a thin clasp, locked shut with a tiny padlock. He had a feeling that this woman would probably be credulous enough to believe in theobaraten , if someone told her the truth. "Ach, I wish that you could talk!" Slowly, solemnly, he nodded his great head. "Ah! You frighten me, almost." He shook his head from side to side. A minute later Eva she had a good eye for precious metal, if the jewelry she usually wore was any indication noticed that his nose ring was of silver. Page 175 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html Daily, now, Sherwood was led out of the compound on a chain attached to his nose ring, walked around and brought back. These expeditions were conducted late at night, Sherwood supposed, to minimize the number of potential observers on the street not that there were many idle onlookers anyway, in the vicinity of the security compound. He moved slowly, with a limp more pronounced than was really called for by the soreness in his stretched wounds. As he passed, surrounded by his walking escort of grim-faced men, among the darkened houses and shops, sniffing the coolness of the suddenly autumnal, almost wintry air, one of his captors kept a firm grip at all times on the chain connected to his nose ring; the other men were all armed, and Sherwood had little doubt that at least one of their guns was loaded with silver bullets. How many knew or suspected that he wasobaraten he could not guess; perhaps none of them. One day Eva's personal maid, a little old woman with bulging eyes, happened to accompany her mistress downstairs. Eva happened to mention the silver in the metal objects by which the bear was constrained. The maid, who was old and superstitious, gasped and recoiled. She pointed out to Eva in rapid Russian that her master and his associates were treating this prize bear as if it were a were-creature:obaraten . That was the only possible [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |