one morning and found me
lying in my bed and no one in the place at all. No one--because the old
woman had vanished. Yes, the neighbours had told him. Apparently on that
very Thursday she had decided that the Revolution had given her her
freedom, and that she was never going to work for anybody ever again.
She had told a woman-neighbour that she heard that the land now was
going to be given back to everybody, and she was returning therefore to
her village somewhere in the Moscow Province. She had not been back
there for twenty years. And first, to celebrate her liberty, she would
get magnificently drunk on furniture polish.

"I did not see her of course," said the Rat. "No. When I came, early in
the morning, no one was here. I thought that you were dead, Barin, and I
began collecting your property, so that no one else should take it. Then
you made a movement, and I saw that you were alive--so I got some
cabbage soup and gave it you. That certainly saved you.... I'm going to
stay with you now."

I did not care in the least whether he went or stayed. He chattered on.
By staying with me he would inevitably neglect his public duties.
Perhaps I didn't know that he had public duties? Yes, he was now an
Anarchist, and I should be astonished very shortly, by the things the
Anarchists would do. All the same, they had their own discipline. They
had their own processions, too, like any one else. Only four days ago he
had marched all over Petrograd carrying a black flag. He must confess
that he was rather sick of it. But they must have processions.... Even
the prostitutes had marched down the Nevski the other day demanding
shorter hours.

But of course I cannot remember all that he said. During the next few
days I slowly pulled myself out of the misty dead world in which I had
been lying. Pain came back to me, leaping upon me and then receding,
finally, on the third day suddenly leaving me altogether. The Rat fed me
on cabbage soup and glasses of tea and caviare and biscuits. During
those three days he never left me, and indeed tended me like a woman. He
would sit by my bed and with his rough hand stroke my hair, while he
poured into my ears ghastly stories of the many crimes that he had
committed. I noticed that he was cleaner and more civilised. His beard
was clipped and he smelt of cabbage and straw--a rather healthy smell.
One morning he suddenly took the pail, filled it with water and washed
himself in front of my windows.