Petersburg (Penguin Classics)

by Bely, Andrei

  And now amidst these raptures, as though he were his own man, not anyone else’s, Nikolai Petrovich Tsukatov began to turn round and round with supple movements and, spreading wide the silvery lace of his side-whiskers with his fingers, his bald patch and smoothly shaven chin gleaming, rushed from couple to couple, dropping an innocent joke to a blue-clad young man, firmly poking two fingers at a firm-chested moustache-wearer, saying loudly into the ear of a more respectable man: ‘Oh, let them enjoy themselves: they tell me I have danced my life away; but you know, this innocent enjoyment saved me in my time from many of the sins of youth: from wine, women and cards.’ And amidst these raptures, as though he were not his own man, but someone else’s, somehow idly, biting the thick felt of his little yellow beard, the zemstvo official clumsily stamped, trod on the ladies’ trains, loitered lonely amidst the couples, and then went off to his room.

  He Was Dancing to a Close

  As usual, from time to time drawing-room visitors made their way through the ballroom – indulgently they advanced into the ballroom along the walls; insolent fans splashed their fronts, they were lashed by beaded skirts, their faces were dusted clean by a hot wind of hurtling couples; but they made their way noiselessly along the walls.

  A rather fat man whose face was unpleasantly pitted with smallpox scars was the first to traverse this hall; the lapels of his frockcoat stuck out impossibly, because he had pulled his frockcoat tight over his belly, which was of respectable proportions; he was the editor of a conservative newspaper, the liberal son of a priest.11 In the drawing-room he kissed the plump hand of Lyubov’ Alekseyevna, a lady of forty-five with a puffy face that fell on to her corset-supported bosom in a double chin. If one looked out of the ballroom through the two intermediate rooms, one could observe from afar his standing sojourn in the drawing-room. There in the distance burned the azure globe of an electric chandelier; there in the shimmering azure light, rather heavily, stood the editor of the conservative newspaper on his elephant legs, showing mistily through suspended flocks of bluish tobacco smoke.

  And as soon as Lyubov’ Alekseyevna asked him some innocent question, the enormously fat editor turned it into a question of great significance:

  ‘No need to tell me – no, madam! Well, you see, they think like that because they’re all idiots. I can undertake to prove it with exactitude.’

  ‘But after all, my dear man, Coco …’

  ‘It’s all a Jewish Freemason swindle, madam: the organization, the centralization …’

  ‘All the same, there are very nice well-bred people among them and people who are, moreover, from our social circle,’ the hostess interjected timidly.

  ‘Yes, but our social circle doesn’t know where sedition gets its power.’

  ‘And in your opinion?’

  ‘The power of sedition is in Charleston …’12

  ‘Why in Charleston?’

  ‘Because that is where the head of all sedition lives.’

  ‘Who is this head?’

  ‘The antipope …’ the editor bellowed.

  ‘And what is the antipope?’

  ‘Ah well, one can see you haven’t read anything.’

  ‘Oh, how interesting all this is: tell me, please.’

  Thus did Lyubov’ Alekseyevna exclaim with surprise, inviting the pockmarked editor to sink into a soft armchair; and as he sank, he said:

  ‘Yes, yes, my good friends!’

  From afar, from the drawing-room, through the two intermediate rooms they could see the glittering and shimmering that were coming out of the open door of the ballroom. There resounded a thunderous:

  ‘Rrreculez! …’

  ‘Balancez, vos dames! …’

  And again.

  ‘Rrreculez! …’

  Nikolai Petrovich Tsukatov had danced his life away; now Nikolai Petrovich was dancing his life to a close; doing so lightly, inoffensively, without vulgarity; not a single small cloud darkened his soul; his soul was pure and innocent, like this bald patch that burned like the sun or like this smoothly shaven chin between side-whiskers, like the moon looking out through the clouds.

  Everything went dancingly for him.

  He had begun to dance when he was a small boy; had danced better than any of the others; and he had been invited to people’s homes as an experienced dancer; towards the end of his course at the high school acquaintances had danced into his life; towards the end of his days at the Law Faculty a circle of influential patrons had danced itself of its own accord out of an enormous circle of acquaintances; and Nikolai Petrovich Tsukatov set about dancing a career in the civil service. By that time he had danced away an estate; having danced away the estate, with frivolous simple-heartedness he started going to balls; and from those balls brought to himself with remarkable ease his companion in life, Lyubov’ Alekseyevna: this completely accidental companion turned out to have an enormous dowry: and ever since then Nikolai Petrovich had danced in his own home; children were danced out; then the children’s education was danced out – it was all danced easily, unpretentiously, joyfully.

  Now he was dancing himself to a close.

  The Ball

  What is a drawing-room during a merry waltz? It is merely an appendage to the ballroom and a refuge for mammas. But the cunning Lyubov’ Alekseyevna, taking advantage of her husband’s good nature (he had not a single enemy) and her enormous dowry, taking advantage, further, of the fact that their house was profoundly indifferent to everything – everything, that is, apart from dancing, of course – and was therefore a neutral meeting place – taking advantage of all this, the cunning Lyubov’ Alekseyevna, leaving it to her husband to direct the dancing, conceived a desire to direct the meetings of the most varied persons; here meetings took place between: a zemstvo official and a civil service official; a publicist and the director of a government department; a demagogue and a Judophobe. This house had been visited, and even lunched in, by Apollon Apollonovich.

  And while Nikolai Petrovich wove the contredanse into unexpected figures, in the indifferently cordial drawing-room more than one conjuncture was woven and unwoven.

  People danced here, too, in their own way.

  This evening, as usual, drawing-room visitors made their way through the ballroom from time to time; the second to do so was a man of truly antediluvian appearance with a sugar-sweet face that was absentminded to an atrocious degree, with a crease in his frockcoat that had ridden up on his down-covered back, making his unpretentious black half-belt protrude indecently between the tails; he was a professor of statistics; from his chin hung a ragged yellowish beard, and on to his shoulders fell, like thick felt, a mane that had never seen a comb. One was struck by his lower lip, which looked as though it were falling away from his mouth.

  The fact was that in view of mounting events there was in preparation something akin to a rapprochement between one of the groups of supporters of, so to speak, if not radical, at any rate thoroughly humane reforms, and the truly patriotic hearts – a rapprochement that was not fundamental but rather conditional, temporarily brought about by the rumbling of the avalanche of mass meetings that was descending on everyone. The supporters of, so to speak, gradual but at any rate thoroughly humane reforms, shaken by the thunder of this terrible avalanche, suddenly in fear began to draw closer to the supporters of the existing norms, but did not make the first move; the liberal professor13 had taken it upon himself, in the name of the common weal, to be the first to step across a threshold which was, so to speak, a fateful one for him. One should not forget that he was respected by the whole of society, and that the latest protest petition had been signed by him; at the latest banquet his goblet had been raised to greet the spring.

  But, as he entered the brightly lit ballroom, the professor lost his composure: the bright lights and shimmerings evidently dazzled him; his lower lip fell away from his mouth in surprise; in a most good-natured manner he contemplated the exultant ballroom, jibbed, faltered, took his unfolded handkerchief out of his
pocket in order to remove from his moustache the moisture he had brought in from the street, and blinked at the couples who had fallen quiet for a moment between two figures of the quadrille.

  Now he was approaching the drawing-room, and the shimmering light of the azure electric chandelier.

  The editor’s voice stopped him on the threshold:

  ‘Do you understand now, madam, the connection between the war with Japan and the Jews who threaten us with a Mongol invasion and with sedition? The antics of our Jews and the emergence of the Boxers in China14 have a most clear and obvious connection.’

  ‘I understand, now I understand!’

  This was Lyubov’ Alekseyevna exclaiming. But the professor stopped in alarm: he, at any rate, remained to the marrow of his bones a liberal and a supporter, so to speak, of thoroughly humane reforms; this was the first time he had been to this house, and he had expected to find Apollon Apollonovich here; of him, however, there was apparently no sign: there was only the editor of a conservative newspaper, that same editor who had just, to express it humanely, thrown at the twenty-five years’ enlightened activity of the gatherer of statistical facts a coagulation of the most indecent filth. And the professor suddenly began to puff and pant, to blink angrily at the editor, began to snort into his ragged beard in a rather ambiguous way, picking up the moisture that hung from his moustache with his bright red lower lip.

  But the hostess’s double chin turned first to the professor, then to the editor of the conservative newspaper and, pointing each of them out to the other with her lorgnette, she introduced them to each other, which caused them both to be taken slightly aback, and then each thrust his cold fingers into the hand of the other, pudgy, sweaty ones into pudgy dry ones, liberal-humane ones into ones that were not humane at all.

  The professor grew even more embarrassed; he bowed slightly, snorted ambiguously, sat down in an armchair, sank into it, and began to fidget restlessly there. As for the newspaper editor, he continued, as though nothing had happened, his conversation with the hostess that had been interrupted. Ableukhov could have come to the rescue, but … Ableukhov was not there.

  Was all this really required of the professor because of a witty conjuncture, a protest petition he had just signed and a goblet that had flown to greet the spring at a banquet?

  But the fat man continued:

  ‘Do you understand, madam, the activity of these Jews and Masons?’

  ‘I understand, now I understand.’

  The liberally grunting and lip-chewing professor could hold out no longer; turning to the hostess, he commented:

  ‘Allow me, too, madam, to interject a modest remark of my own – a scientific remark: the information being given here has a perfectly clear source of origin.’

  But the fat man suddenly interrupted him.

  While over there, over there …

  Over there the ballroom pianist suddenly and elegantly broke off his musical dance with a thunderous stab in the bass with one hand, while with his other hand he turned a page of music with an expert movement in the twinkling of an eye, and with his hand suspended in the air, his fingers spread expressively between the keyboard and the music, he turned the whole of his body somehow expectantly towards the host, flashing the enamel of his dazzlingly white teeth.

  And then, to greet the ballroom pianist’s gesture, Nikolai Petrovich Tsukatov suddenly thrust his smoothly shaven chin out of his raging side-whiskers, making to the ballroom pianist a sign of encouragement and approval; and then with head inclined, as if he were butting space, he somehow hurriedly threw himself in front of the couples at the highlights on the parquetry, twisting the end of one greying side-whisker in two fingers. And after him an angel-like creature flew helplessly, stretching her heliotrope scarf in space. Nikolai Petrovich Tsukatov, having derived inspiration from his dancing flight of fantasy, flew like lightning to the ballroom pianist and roared, like a lion, to the whole ballroom:

  ‘Pas-de-quatre, s’il vous plait!’

  And after him the angel-like creature helplessly flew.

  Meanwhile servants appeared, running promptly into the corridor. For some reason tables, stools and chairs were carried out from somewhere and then carried in again; a pile of fresh sandwiches was brought in on a porcelain dish. There was also a chiming of forks. A stack of fragile plates was brought in.

  Couple after couple poured into the brightly lit corridor. Jokes were scattered and laughter was scattered in a single, unbroken roar, and in a single unbroken rumbling chairs were moved about.

  Puffs of cigarette smoke rose in the corridor, in the smoking room; puffs of cigarette smoke rose in the vestibule. Here, pulling a glove from his fingers and thrusting his hand in his pocket, a young cadet fanned his cheeks with a darkened glove; embracing, two young girls were telling each other some sacred secrets which had, perhaps, only just come into being; brunette talked to blonde, and the little blonde was snorting and biting her delicate little handkerchief.

  If one stood in the corridor one could also see a corner of the dining-room, which was packed full with guests; and into there open sandwiches, bowls laden with fruit, bottles of wine, bottles of tart, nose-tingling fizzy drinks were being carried.

  Now in the impossibly brightly-lit room only the ballroom pianist remained, gathering his music; thoroughly wiping his hot fingers, carefully passing a soft rag over the keyboard of the grand piano and putting the music into piles, this modest ballroom pianist, in whose presence the servants opened all the vents in the windows one by one, moved off indecisively through the lacquered corridor, resembling a black, long-legged bird. With pleasure he too was thinking of tea and sandwiches.

  Through the doors that led into the drawing-room, out of the semi-darkness sailed a lady of forty-five with a fleshy chin that fell on to her corset-supported bosom. And looked through her lorgnette.

  While into the ballroom after her sailed a rather fat man whose face was unpleasantly pitted with smallpox scars, and whose belly of respectable proportions was pulled in tight by a crease in his frockcoat.

  Somewhere over there, at a distance, the professor of statistics, who until now had been sitting as at daggers drawn, was also plodding along; now he bumped into the zemstvo official, who was standing bored by the passageway, suddenly recognized that official, smiled cordially, and even began to pluck a button on his frockcoat with two fingers, as though he were grasping at a cast sheet-anchor; and now there resounded:

  ‘According to statistical information … The annual consumption of salt by the average Dutchman …’

  And again there resounded:

  ‘The annual consumption of salt by the normal Spaniard …’

  ‘According to statistical information …’

  As Though Someone Were Complaining

  They were waiting for the maskers. And still the maskers were not there. It had evidently only been a rumour. Yet they went on waiting for the maskers all the same.

  And then the tinkling of the doorbell was heard: it was a timid sound; as though someone who had not been invited were giving a reminder of himself, asking to be let in out of the damp, cruel fog and the slush of the streets; but no one answered him. And then again the little bell began to ring, more loudly.

  As though someone were complaining.

  At that moment, panting, a girl of ten years ran out of the two intermediate rooms and saw the ballroom, which had just been full, glittering with an absence of people. There, by the entrance to the hallway, a door banged inquiringly, while the door’s faceted and diamond-spawning handle began to sway slightly; and when a void had sufficiently appeared between the walls and the door, a small black mask thrust itself cautiously out of the void as far as its nose, and two pale sparks gleamed in the slits of the eyes.

  Then the ten-year-old child saw between the wall and the door the small black mask and from the slits two hostile eyes fixed on her; now the whole masker pushed his way in, and a black beard made of gently curling lace was revealed;
after the beard in the doorway, rustling, a satin cape sluggishly appeared, and the child, who had at first raised her fingers to her eyes in alarm, now joyfully smiled, began to clap her hands, and with a cry of: ‘Here are the maskers, they’ve come!’ she hurriedly ran back into the depths of the enfilade of rooms – to where, amidst the suspended flocks of bluish tobacco smoke, the misty professor on his elephant legs showed through.

  The bright blood-red domino, stepping abruptly over the threshold, drew his satin cape over the lacquered tiles of the parquet floor; and just barely was it registered on the tiles of the parquet floor, like a floating crimson ripple of its own reflections; running crimson through the ballroom, as if an unsteady pool of blood were running from parquet to parquet; while towards it heavy feet began to tread, and enormous boots began to squeak from the distance towards the domino.

  The zemstvo official, who had now become firmly established in the ballroom, stopped in perplexity, clutching with one hand at a tuft of his beard; meanwhile the lonely domino seemed to be imploring him not to drive him out of this house back into the Petersburg slush, imploring him not to drive him out of this house back into the cruel and dense fog. The zemstvo official evidently wanted to make a joke, because he hemmed and hawed; but when he tried to express his joke in words, that joke assumed a rather incoherent form:

  ‘Mm … Yes, yes …’

  The domino was advancing towards him, imploring with the whole of his body, advancing towards him with a red, rustling outstretched arm and the transparent lace lifted ever so slightly from his head that hung down from its stooping shoulders.

  ‘Tell me, please, are you a masker?’

  Silence.

  ‘Mm … Yes, yes …’

  But the masker implored; he threw forward the whole of his outstretched body – in the void, over the lacquered surfaces, the highlights, above the pool of his own reflections; rushing, lonely, about the ballroom.

  ‘There’s a fine thing …’