Petersburg (Penguin Classics)

by Bely, Andrei

  ‘I’m sorry, Pavel Yakovlevich: you know, I have a poor memory for names …’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, sir, for heaven’s sake: it doesn’t matter sir.’

  The mangy little gentleman thought slyly: ‘He’s still thinking about his son … He also wants to know … but he’s too ashamed to ask …’

  ‘Well, then, Pavel Yakovlevich, sir: give me your address.’

  Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov, unfastening his coat, fished out his notebook that was bound in the hide of a dead rhinoceros; both men stood beneath the street lamp.

  ‘My address,’ the little gentleman said in a sudden fit of agitation, ‘is a changeable address: most often I’m on Vasily Island. Well, here it is: Eighteenth Line, House 17. Care of the master shoemaker, Bessmertny. I rent two rooms from him. They’re rented to District Clerk Voronkov …’

  ‘Indeed, sir, indeed, sir, indeed, sir, I shall be coming to see you in a day or two …’

  Suddenly Apollon Apollonovich raised the arcs of his eyebrows: wonderment was displayed on his features:

  ‘But why,’ he began, ‘why …’

  ‘Why is my last name Voronkov, when I’m really called Morkovin?’

  ‘Precisely …’

  ‘Well, you see, Apollon Apollonovich, it’s because I live there on a false passport.’

  Apollon Apollonovich’s face displayed squeamishness (after all, he denied the existence of such figures even in principle).

  ‘And my real lodgings are on the Nevsky …’

  Apollon Apollonovich thought: ‘What can one do about it: the existence of such figures in a time of transition and within the bounds of strict legality is a sad necessity; and yet all the same, a necessity.’

  ‘At the present time, your excellency, I am, as you see, engaged mainly in investigative work: these are exceedingly important times.’

  ‘Yes, you are right,’ Apollon Apollonovich agreed.

  ‘A crime whose importance affects the whole state is in preparation … Oh, be careful: there’s a puddle here … This crime …’

  ‘Indeed, sir …’

  ‘Very soon we shall be able to reveal … There’s a dry place here, sir; permit me to take your hand.’

  Apollon Apollonovich was walking across an enormous square: within him awoke his fear of such wide spatial expanses, and he involuntarily pressed up close against the little gentleman.

  ‘Indeed, sir, indeed, sir: very good, sir …’

  Apollon Apollonovich tried to keep his spirits up in this enormous spatial expanse, yet lost his composure all the same; Mr Morkovin’s icy hand suddenly touched him, took him by the hand, led him past some puddles: and he followed, followed, and followed the icy hand; and the spatial expanses flew towards him. Yet Apollon Apollonovich hung his head: the thought of the fate that was threatening Russia overcame for a moment all his personal fears: his fear about his son and his fear of crossing such an enormous square; Apollon Apollonovich cast a glance at the selfless guardian of the existing order: Mr Morkovin led him to the pavement all the same.

  ‘A terrorist act is in preparation?’

  ‘The very same, sir …’

  ‘And its victim? …’

  ‘A certain high official is to fall …’

  Gooseflesh ran down Apollon Apollonovich’s spine: the other day Apollon Apollonovich had received a threatening letter; in the letter he had been informed that in the event he were to accept the senior position, a bomb would be thrown at him; Apollon Apollonovich had contempt for all anonymous letters; and he had torn up the letter; and accepted the position.

  ‘Forgive me for asking, please, but if it is not a secret: who are they going to make their target now?’

  Here something truly strange occurred: all the objects around suddenly seemed to cower down, grew noticeably damper and looked nearer than they ought to have done; while Mr Morkovin also seemed to cower down, also looked nearer than he ought to have done: looked ancient and somehow familiar; a little ironic smile wandered over his lips as, bowing his head to the senator, he declared in a tiny whisper:

  ‘What do you mean, who? It’s you, your excellency, you!’

  Apollon Apollonovich looked: there was the caryatid of the entrance porch; there was nothing particularly remarkable about it: it was a caryatid. And yet – no, no! There was something wrong about the caryatid – he had never seen anything like it in all his life: it was hanging in the fog. There was the side of the house; there was nothing particularly remarkable about the side: it was a side like other sides – made of stone. And yet – no, no: just as there was more to everything than met the eye: everything within him had been dislocated, torn loose; he had been torn loose from himself and was muttering senselessly into the midnight darkness:

  ‘What’s that? … No, wait, wait! …’

  Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov was still on no account able to realistically imagine that this glove-clad hand that was twisting a button on another man’s coat, that these legs here, and this weary, utterly weary (believe me!) heart could, under the influence of the expansion of gases within some bomb out there, suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, be turned … into …

  ‘What I mean is, what?’

  ‘Just as I say, Apollon Apollonovich, sir – it’s all quite simple …’

  That it was so simple, Apollon Apollonovich could not believe: at first he gave a kind of provocative snort into his grey little side-whiskers (– his side-whiskers would go, too!), thrust out his lips (his lips would not exist then), and then acquired a pinched look, lowered his head right down and stared mindlessly at the dirty rivulet of the pavement gutter babbling at his feet. All around there was a babbling of wet blotches, a rustling, a whispering: the autumnal season’s old woman’s whisper came to his ears.

  Under the street lamp Apollon Apollonovich stood, rocking his ashen-grey countenance slightly from side to side, opened his eyes in astonishment, rolled them, turning up the whites (a carriage thundered, but it seemed as though something terrible and heavy were thundering there: like blows of metal shattering life).

  Mr Morkovin had evidently begun to feel really sorry for this aged outline that seemed to be settling into the mud before him. He added:

  ‘Don’t be afraid, your excellency, for the strictest precautions have been taken; and we won’t allow it: there is no direct danger either today or tomorrow … In a week’s time you’ll know all there is to know … Just wait a little …’

  As he observed the piteously trembling blotch-like face that resembled that of a corpse, illumined by the pale sheen of the street lamp’s flame, Mr Morkovin found himself thinking: ‘How he has aged; why, he’s just a ruin …’ But, with a barely perceptible groaning, Apollon Apollonovich turned his beardless countenance towards Mr Morkovin and suddenly gave a sad smile that made enormous wrinkly pouches form under his eyes.

  A moment later, however, Apollon Apollonovich completely recovered himself, looked younger, whiter: firmly he shook Morkovin’s hand and walked, as straight as a stick, into the grimy autumn fog, calling to mind the profile of the mummy of Pharaoh Rameses II.

  The night was black, dark blue and lilac, shading into the reddish blotches of the street lamps as into the fiery blotches of a fiery rash. Gateways, walls, fences, courtyards and entrance porches loomed – and from them issued every imaginable kind of babbling and every imaginable kind of sigh; the many dissonant sighs in the side-lane of fleeing windy gusts, somewhere over there, behind the houses, the walls, the fences and gateways, combined into consonant sighs; while the fleeting babbling of the rivulets, somewhere over there, behind the houses, the walls, the fences and gateways, all united into one fleeting babble; all the babblings became a sighing; and all the sighs began to babble there.

  Ugh! How damp, how dank it was, how dark blue and lilac the night was as it moved painfully into the bright red rash of the street lamps, and how from this dark blue lilac murk Apollon Apollonovich ran out under the circles of the street lamps and again
ran off from a red circle into the lilac murk!

  The Madman

  We left Sergei Sergeyevich Likhutin at that fateful moment in his life when, white as death, completely calm, with an ironic smile on his firmly compressed lips he rushed at top speed out to the room at the front (to the vestibule, in other words) after his disobedient wife and then, with a click of his spurs, stood deferentially in front of the door with her fur coat in his hands; and when Sofya Petrovna Likhutina rustled provocatively past the nose of the angry second lieutenant, Sergei Sergeyevich Likhutin, as we saw, began still with the same too rapid gestures to walk about everywhere and everywhere put out the electric lights.

  But why did he reveal his unusual state of mind by this strange action? What, pray, could be the connection between all this filth and the electric lights? There was just as little sense here as there was in the connection between the tall and angular, sad figure of the second lieutenant in his dark green uniform, with his too rapid gestures and the provocative, flaxen little beard on his face that had suddenly grown younger and looked as though it had been carved from fragrant cypress wood. There was no connection: except perhaps – the mirrors: in the light they reflected – a tall, angular man with a little face that had suddenly grown younger: the tall, angular reflection with the little face that had suddenly grown younger, going right up to the surface of the mirror, took hold of itself by the white, slender neck – oh, oh, oh! There was no connection and never had been any between the light and the gestures.

  ‘Click, click, click,’ went the switches, nevertheless, plunging the tall, angular man with the too-rapid gestures into darkness. Perhaps this was not second lieutenant Likhutin?

  No, put yourself in his dreadful position: being reflected so foully in the mirrors, all because some domino had delivered an insult to his honourable home, all because, in accordance with his officer’s word of honour, he was now obliged not to allow his wife over the threshold. No, enter into his dreadful position: it was second lieutenant Likhutin, of that there could be no doubt – him in person.

  ‘Click, click, click,’ went the switch in the next room, now. The switch in the third room clicked likewise. This sound alarmed Mavrushka; and when she came shuffling through from the kitchen into the rooms, she was engulfed in thick, total darkness.

  And she muttered:

  ‘What’s all this, then?’

  But out of the darkness came a dry, slightly muffled cough:

  ‘Get out of here …’

  ‘How can I, barin …’

  Someone whistled to her from the corner in a commanding, indignant whisper:

  ‘Get out of here …’

  ‘How can I, barin: why, I must tidy up for the barynya …’

  ‘Get out of the rooms altogether.’

  ‘And then, you yourself know, the beds have not been made …’

  ‘Out, out, out! …’

  And no sooner had she left the room and gone into the kitchen, than the barin came through to her in the kitchen:

  ‘I want you to get right out of the house altogether …’

  ‘But how can I, barin …?’

  ‘Get out, get out as quickly as you can …’

  ‘But where am I to go?’

  ‘You know best: I don’t want you to set foot …’

  ‘Barin! …’

  ‘In this house until tomorrow …’

  ‘But barin! …’

  ‘Out, out, out …’

  He threw her fur coat into her hands, and – pushed her out through the door: Mavrushka began to cry; she was dreadfully a-feared: it was easy seeing the barin wasn’t himself: she ought to have gone to the yardkeeper and the police station, but instead, silly woman, she went to the house of a female friend.

  Oh, Mavrushka …

  How dreadful is the lot of an ordinary, completely normal man: his life is decided by a vocabulary of easily understandable words, by the use of extremely unambiguous actions; those actions draw him into a boundless distance, like a wretched little vessel that is rigged with words and gestures that are completely expressible; but if the wretched little vessel happens to run aground on the underwater rock of life’s incoherence, then the wretched little vessel, having run aground on the rock, falls to pieces, and the simple, straightforward swimmer drowns in the space of a moment … Ladies and gentlemen, the slightest bump from life is enough to deprive ordinary people of their reason; no, madmen do not know such risks of harm to the brain: their brains are probably woven from some very light, ethereal substance. For the simple, straightforward brain all that those brains penetrate is altogether impenetrable: all that the simple, straightforward brain can do is be broken to pieces; and it is broken to pieces.

  Ever since the previous evening Sergei Sergeich Likhutin had been experiencing a most acute cerebral pain, as though he had struck his forehead against an iron wall while running at full tilt; and as he stood before the wall, he saw that the wall was not a wall, that it was penetrable and that there, on the other side of the wall, was a light invisible to him, and some kind of laws of absurdity, like out there, on the other side of the walls of the little flat, where there was both light and the movement of cabs … Here Sergei Sergeich Likhutin uttered a heavy groan and shook his head, experiencing the most acute cerebral workings that were unknown even to him. Over the wall crept reflections: some little steamer must be passing along the Moika, leaving intensely bright stripes on the waters.

  Sergei Sergeich Likhutin groaned again and again; again and again did he shake his head: his thoughts had got finally confused, as had everything else. He had begun his reflections with an analysis of his unfaithful wife, and ended by catching himself thinking some sort of senseless rubbish: perhaps the hard surface was impenetrable to him alone, and the mirrored reflections of the rooms were really the rooms themselves; in those real rooms lived the family of some visiting officer; the mirrors ought to be covered up: it was uncomfortable to have to study with curious gazes the behaviour of a married officer and his young wife; one could find all sorts of rubbish there; and Sergei Sergeich Likhutin began to catch himself thinking this rubbish; and found that he himself was occupying himself with rubbish, becoming distracted from important, really important thoughts (it was just as well that Sergei Sergeich Likhutin had switched off the electric lights; the mirrors would have distracted him dreadfully, and just now he needed all the exertion of his will in order to detect some train of thought within himself).

  So that was why, after his wife left, second lieutenant Likhutin had begun to walk about everywhere and everywhere put out the electric lights.

  What was he to do now? Yesterday evening it had – begun: come creeping, hissing: what was it – why had it begun? Apart from the fact of Nikolai Apollonovich Ableukhov’s disguise, there was decidedly nothing to get hold of here. The second lieutenant’s head was the head of an ordinary man: this head refused to serve in this delicate question, and the blood rushed to his head: a wet towel on his temples would be a good thing now; and Sergei Sergeich Likhutin put a wet towel on his temples: put it on them, and then tore it off again. Something, at any rate, had happened; and at any rate he, Likhutin, had got involved in it; and, having got involved, he had become united with it; here it was: knocking, playing, beating, twitching his temporal veins.

  A man of the most simple straightforwardness, he had smashed against a wall: while there, into the depths on the other side of the mirror, he could not penetrate: all he could do was, out loud, in his wife’s presence, give his honourable word as an officer that he would not voluntarily readmit his wife to the premises, if that wife were to go to the ball without him.

  What was he to do? What was he to do?

  Sergei Sergeich Likhutin grew agitated and struck another match: the reddish-brown flambeaux illumined the face of a madman; anxiously now did it press up close against the clock: two hours had already passed since Sofya Petrovna had left; two hours, that was a hundred and twenty minutes; having counted the number
of minutes that had elapsed, Sergei Sergeich began to count the seconds, too:

  ‘Sixty times a hundred and twenty? Two times six are twelve; and carry one in your mind …’

  Sergei Sergeich Likhutin clutched his head:

  ‘One in your mind; my mind – yes: my mind was smashed against the mirror … The mirrors ought to be taken out! Twelve, carry one in your mind – yes: one little piece of glass … No, one lived second …’

  His thoughts had grown confused: Sergei Sergeich Likhutin was pacing about in complete darkness: tap-tap-tap went Sergei Sergeich’s footsteps; and Sergei Sergeich went on counting:

  ‘Two times six are twelve; and carry one in your mind: one time six is six; plus – one unit; an abstract unit is not a little piece of glass. And then two zeroes: and that makes seven thousand two hundred massive seconds.’

  And, having triumphed over this most complex cerebral work, Sergei Sergeich Likhutin, rather inappropriately, displayed his triumph. Suddenly he remembered: his face grew dark:

  ‘Seven thousand two hundred massive seconds since she ran off: two hundred thousand seconds – no, it’s all finished!’

  On the expiration of seven thousand seconds, the two hundred and first second had, it appeared, opened in time the beginning of the fulfilment of his officer’s word: he had lived through the seven thousand two hundred seconds as though they had been seven thousand years; from the creation of the world until the present time not much more had elapsed, after all. And it seemed to Sergei Sergeich that ever since the creation of the world he had been imprisoned in this darkness with a most acute headache: by spontaneous thinking, the brain’s autonomy in spite of his self-tormenting personality. And Sergei Sergeich Likhutin feverishly began to fuss about in a corner; for a moment he fell quiet; began to cross himself; hurriedly from some little box or other he threw out a rope (it looked like a snake), uncoiled it, and made a noose with it: the noose refused to tighten. And Sergei Sergeich Likhutin, in despair now, ran into his little study; the rope went trailing after him.