IV.
By the end of the third week I was blighted by acute insomnia. It is difficult to say how it began; I remember only that it required great efforts to fall asleep, and that I would awaken earlier and earlier. During this time a chance meeting led me to a dubious refuge. Wandering along the Moika and taking pleasure in the spectacle of some fishing—a peasant with a net attached to a long pole was walking slowly around the granite banks, occasionally lowering his tackle into the water and pulling out a handful of little fish—I met the shopkeeper from whom I used to purchase groceries on account several years previously; this man now appeared to be doing something official. He was received well in a great many buildings on fiscal and economic matters. I did not recognize him at once: now without an apron, without his calico shirt (which had looked as though it came straight out of a Turkish painting), without his beard and moustache, the shopkeeper was dressed in strict military pleats, cleanly shaven, and reminded me of an Englishman, albeit with shades of Yaroslavl. Although he carried a fat briefcase, he did not have the authority to lodge me just wherever he pleased, and so he suggested the empty chambers of the Central Bank,* where 260 rooms were standing like water in a pond, quiet and stagnant.
“The Vatican,” I said, shuddering slightly at the thought of such a lodging. “What, is there really nobody living there? And what if people show up? And, if they do, won’t the caretaker hand me over to the militia?”
“Ach!” was all that the former shopkeeper had to say. “The building isn’t far from here. Go and take a look.”
He led me into a large courtyard partitioned by archways that led into other courtyards, looked around, and, since we met no one there, strode over purposefully to a dark corner that had a servants’ staircase leading up. He paused on the third landing in front of an ordinary apartment door; rubbish was spilling out of the small gap at the bottom. The landing was littered densely with grimy papers. The uninhabited silence lurking behind the door seemed to seep out through the keyhole like a vast emptiness. Here the shopkeeper explained to me how to open the door without a key: while pulling the handle, just give it a shake and press it up, then both halves would come apart, since there was no bolt.
“There is a key,” the shopkeeper said, “only I don’t have it. But if you have the method, you can come and go as you please. Just be sure not to let anyone in on the secret. You can lock it from within and without—all you have to do is slam it. If you need to go out, take a peek at the staircase first. There’s a little window that you can use for this.” (Truly, in the wall by the door, around eye level, there was a dark little window, the glass of which was broken.) “I won’t go in with you. You’re an educated man and you’ll see for yourself how best to install yourself; just know that you could hide a whole company of soldiers here. You can stay here for a couple of days; as soon as I find you a place, I’ll let you know. Consequently—and do forgive the indelicacy, but every man has to eat and drink—please be so kind as to accept a loan until circumstances improve.”
He laid out a fat wallet, thrust into my tacitly drooping hand (as one would pay a doctor for a home visit) several paper notes, repeated his instructions, and left, while I, having closed the door, sat down on a crate. Meanwhile, the silence that we always hear inside us—like memories of the sounds of life—was already enticing me, like a forest. It was hiding behind the half-open door that led to the neighboring room. I got up and began to explore.
I walked from one door to the next, through large, high-ceilinged rooms, feeling like a man taking his first steps on the ice. It was spacious and echoed throughout. Scarcely had I left behind one door than more would appear ahead of me and off to the side, leading into the dim light of the distance with its even darker doorways. Paper lay scattered around on the parquet like the grimy snow of spring roads. Its abundance recalled a scene of snowdrifts being cleared away. In several rooms, from the very threshold, I was forced to wade knee-deep through this clutter.
Paper of every kind, of every calling and color, spread out here in a ubiquitous jumble on a truly prodigious scale. It washed up in screes against the walls and hung from the window ledges, its white deluge flowing from one parquet floor to the next, streaming from open cupboards, filling corners, in places forming hedgerows and ploughed fields. Notebooks, letterheads, ledgers, binder labels, numbered pages, ruled pages, typescripts, and manuscripts—the contents of thousands of cupboards had been turned out before my very eyes, and my gaze ran over everything, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the scene. All the rustling, the echo of footsteps, even my own breathing, sounded as if they were happening right beside my ears—so great, so spectacularly stark was the bleak silence. The whole time I was plagued by the stale smell of dust; the windows were double framed. Looking at their vespertine glass, I could see now the trees lining the canal, now the roofs of the courtyard or the facade giving onto Nevsky Prospect. This meant that the premises took up an entire block, but the dimensions, thanks to the frequent and tiresome palpability of the space, which was partitioned by never-ending walls and doors, seemed to entail a journey of many days on foot—a feeling that is the antithesis of what we call “a little street” or “a little square.” Having scarcely begun my tour, I was already comparing this place to a labyrinth. Everything looked the same—heaps of clutter, voids here and there, indicated by windows or a door, and the expectation of many other doors that had been robbed of a crowd. Thus a man might move, supposing he could move, inside the reflection of a mirror, when two mirrors replicate ad nauseam the space they enclose, and the only thing missing is his own face, peeping out of a doorway, as though enframed.
I had passed through no more than twenty rooms, but already I was disoriented and had begun to take note of distinguishing features, lest I should lose my bearings: a layer of lime on the floor; over there a broken bureau; a door that had been pulled off and placed against a wall; a window ledge littered with pots of lilac ink; a wire basket; reams of used blotting paper; a fireplace; every now and then a cupboard or a forlorn-looking chair. But these features, too, began to repeat themselves: there were times when, looking around, I would think in astonishment that I had already been there, establishing my error only by contrasting the sequence of other objects. Sometimes I would come across a steel safe with a heavy, gaping door, like an empty stove; a telephone apparatus that looked like a post box or a fungus on a birch tree amid the desolation; a stepladder; I even found a little black hat block that had at some unknown time and by some miracle added itself to the inventory.
Twilight had already penetrated the depths of the hall, and mounds of paper gave off a white glow in its farthest reaches. The contours and corridors merged with the haze, and a dim light cut rhombus-like across the parquet and through the doors, but the walls flanking the windows still shone here and there with the dramatic brilliance of the sunset. As soon as new doorways appeared in front of me, the memories of what in passing I was leaving behind curdled like milk, and really I was conscious only of traversing an array of walls through rubbish and paper. In one spot I had to climb and wade through piles of slippery files; it made such a noise, as if I were making my way through bushes. As I walked on, I kept looking back in anguish: the slightest noise amid the silence clung to me so inextricably that I felt as though I were dragging bundles of dry brushwood with my feet, and I listened to see whether someone else might not have heard my steps. To begin with, I walked about the nervous entity that was the bank, trampling over the black grain of figures with the sense that I was disrupting a sequence of orchestral notes that could be heard all the way from Alaska to Niagara. I was not seeking comparisons: provoked by the unforgettable spectacle, they appeared and disappeared, like a chain of nebulous figures. I felt as if I were traversing the bed of an aquarium that had been drained of water, or in an ice field, or even—to put it in the most precise and sinister terms—as if I were wandering through past centuries that had been perverted by the present day. I passed through an inn
er corridor, so tortuously long that you could have ridden a bicycle along it. At the end of it there was a staircase; I walked up to the next floor and came down again by another staircase, passing a hall of average size, its floor covered with electrical components. I could see globes of frosted glass, lampshades in the shapes of tulips and bells, serpentine bronze chandeliers, bundles of wires, piles of ceramics and copper.
The next tortuous passage led me to an archive, where, amid the dark squeeze of shelves running in parallel athwart the room, from floor to ceiling, passage was unthinkable. A medley of copybooks swelled up higher than my chest; I could not even survey the area, so densely was everything jumbled up.
Exiting by a side door, I proceeded in the half-light of the white walls, until I saw a large archway that connected the corridors to a central hall with a double row of black columns. The rail of an alabaster gallery stretched along the tops of these columns, forming an impressive rectangle; the ceiling was barely visible. Sufferers of agoraphobia would have left, covering their faces—so great was the distance to the other end of this receptacle for crowds that the doors looming there were but the size of playing cards. A thousand people could dance here. In the center of the hall stood a fountain: its gargoyles, with their gaping mouths, comic and tragic, looked like a cluster of human heads. Abutting the columns, a long counter stretched out like an arena, surmounted by a frosted-glass screen that announced in gold lettering cashiers and accounts departments. The broken partitions, the collapsed booths, the tables that had been moved over to the walls were scarcely visible on account of the room’s size. My gaze hardly registered these tokens of a lifeless desolation equal to that which reigned everywhere else. I stood motionless, taking in the view. I began to develop a taste for this spectacle, absorbing its style. The exultation experienced by someone watching a great conflagration became apparent to me once again. The allure of destruction grew like poetic inspiration—before me unfurled a unique landscape, a region, a country even. Its colors naturally transformed the impression into suggestion, like a musical extemporization on an original theme. It was hard to imagine that there had once been a crowd here, carrying thousands of business affairs in heads and briefcases. Everything bore the stamp of decay and silence. A breath of incredible audacity had passed here from door to door—one of elemental, irresistible destruction, which had played out just as easily as crushing eggshells under foot. These impressions provoked a kind of cerebral itch that made the very notion of catastrophe fascinating, just as the heart’s magnetism draws one to stare into an abyss. It was as if here a single thought echoed in every possible form and, like a ringing in one’s ears, importunately recalled the motto:
“It is done, and now there is only silence.”
V.
Fatigue came at last. It was difficult now to distinguish the passageways and staircases. I was hungry. There was no hope of finding an exit in order to go out and buy something to eat at the corner. In one of the kitchens I slaked my thirst by turning on the tap. To my surprise, the water still flowed, albeit a trickle, and this insignificant sign of life buoyed me after a fashion. I then set about choosing a room. This took several more minutes, until I stumbled upon an office with a single door, a fireplace, and a telephone. There was hardly any furniture; the only thing to sit or lie down on was a sofa that had been scalped and deprived of its legs; fragments of its slashed leather, springs, and hair were sticking out all over. In an alcove stood a tall walnut cupboard: it was locked. I lit a cigarette, then another, while I restored myself to a point of relative equilibrium, and set about installing myself for the night.
For quite some time I had not known the pleasure of fatigue, the joys of deep and pleasant sleep. While there was still daylight, I pondered the approaching night with the caution of a man carrying a pail full of water, trying not to work myself up, almost certain that this time exhaustion would overcome the oppressive vigor of consciousness. Yet as soon as evening came, the fear of not falling asleep gripped me with the full force of obsessive thought, and I yearned for the night’s coming, to know whether I would fall asleep or not. Yet the closer it came to midnight, the more distinctly I was prevailed upon by my emotions in their unnatural, heightened state; at the slightest agitation, a disquieting excitement, like the brilliance of magnesium in the dark, wrought my nerves into a taut, reverberating string, and it was as if, the day being over, I would awaken only to begin a long nocturnal journey through my restless heart. The feeling of fatigue lifted; my eyes stung, as though grains of sand were in them. The embryo of any thought would mature immediately in all its complexity and ramifications, and the impending long, languid hours, full of memories, raised in me nothing more than impotent indignation, like the prospect of a labor that is fruitless, obligatory, and inescapable. I tried to summon sleep as best I could. In the morning, feeling as though my body had been drenched in hot water, I drew in the illusory presence of sleep with an artificial yawn, but when I closed my eyes, I felt that same sense of absurdity as we do when we close our eyes for no good reason during the day. I tried everything: examining marks on the wall, counting, lying still, repeating the same phrase over and over again—all without success.
I was in possession of a candle end, an item of absolute necessity when there was no light in the staircase. Dim though its light was, it illuminated the frigid heights of the room. Next I stuffed the pits of the sofa with paper and constructed a headboard of books. My overcoat served as a blanket. I then thought it would be a good idea to light the stove, so as to watch the flames. More to the point, though it was summer, the place lacked warmth. In any case, I had concocted a pastime and was glad of it. Before long, the bundles of accounts and books were ablaze in the grand fireplace, spilling as ash into the grate. The flame shook the shadows of the open doors in the darkness before vanishing into the distance with a gentle phosphorescence.
Yet this fortuitous fire burned in sterile secrecy. It did not illuminate the customary objects, those we examine against the fantastic glare of red and golden coals while we probe the inner warmth and light of the soul. It was comfortless, like the fire of a thief. I lay there, propping up my head with a numb arm, without any desire to drift off. All my efforts in this regard had been equal to the acting of a player who lies down in bed, yawning, before a crowd. What was more, I was hungry, and, in order to stay my hunger, I chain-smoked.
I lay there, lazily observing the fire and the cupboard. Just then the thought struck me that the cupboard would not have been locked without good reason. What, though, could be hidden there, if not those same bundles of obsolete dossiers? What could yet remain to be pillaged? A woeful experience with burned-out electric bulbs, of which I had found a pile in one of those same cupboards, led me to suspect that the cupboard had been locked without any particular intention and only because the key had matched the lock so well. Nevertheless, I beheld the massive, solid doors—like those of a porte-cochère—with food in mind. I did not seriously hope to find anything edible there, but I was being led blindly by my stomach, which always forced me to think only of it, according to its summary logic—that same logic that produces hungry saliva at the mere sight of food. In order to distract myself I wandered through several of the nearest rooms, but, fumbling there by candlelight, I failed to find so much as a crust, and so I returned, even more enticed by the cupboard. In the fireplace the embers were giving out a dusky light. My thoughts were like those of a vagrant. Might not one of those people have locked away a loaf of bread in this cupboard, or perhaps a teapot, tea, and sugar? The diamonds and gold were kept elsewhere; that much was obvious. I considered it within my rights to open the cupboard, for it was not my intention to pilfer anything that might be locked up there. But as for food—ah, as for food!—whatever the letter of the law might say, I had the right.
Candle in hand, I was slow, however, to challenge this rationale, lest I should lose my moral fortitude. Therefore, taking a steel ruler, I inserted the end into the gap opposite t
he lock and, applying a little bit of pressure, pulled it away. With a tinkle, the latch came flying off, and, creaking stiffly, the cupboard opened. I recoiled, for what I saw was extraordinary. With a shudder, I flung the ruler away in a nervous gesture. The only reason that I did not cry out was that I hadn’t the strength. It was as if I had been floored by a rush of water from a barrel.
VI.
The first shudder of the discovery was also one of momentary though terrifying doubt. This was not a sensory illusion, however. I saw a store of costly provisions—six deep shelves, heavily laden and overflowing. Their contents included items that had become rarities—the choicest produce, fit for a wealthy table, the tastes and smells of which were in those days nothing but a vague memory. Having dragged a table over, I set about my inspection.
I began by closing the doors, fearing open spaces as I do suspicious eyes; I even went out into the corridor to listen for the sounds of somebody walking about within those walls, just as I was doing. The silence gave me my cue.
I started with the top. The upper shelves (that is, the fifth and sixth) were occupied by four panniers, from one of which, as soon as I moved it, an enormous ginger rat jumped out and tumbled to the floor with a nauseating squeak. I snatched my hand away convulsively and froze with disgust. My next movement caused the flight of two more vermin, which darted between my legs like giant lizards. I then shook the pannier and tapped it against the cupboard, standing back in case there should be a deluge of these dismal, devious creatures, their tails flitting about. But the rats (supposing there had been others) must have slipped away through the back of the cupboard into the cracks in the walls—the cupboard was silent.
Fandango and Other Stories Page 21