Petersburg (Penguin Classics)

by Andrei Bely

  This Pallas was the senator’s house.

  The stone colossus has escaped from his brain; and now the house opens its hospitable door – to us.

  The lackey was going up the staircase; he suffered from breathlessness, though we are not concerned with that now, but with … the staircase: a beautiful staircase! And it has steps – as soft as the convolutions of the brain. But the author does not have time to describe to the reader that same staircase, up which ministers have climbed more than once (he will describe it later), because the lackey is already in the reception hall …

  And again – the reception hall: beautiful! Windows and walls: the walls somewhat cold … But the lackey was in the drawing-room (we have seen the drawing-room): We have glanced over the beautiful abode, guided by the general characteristic which the senator was in the habit of allotting to all objects.

  Thus: –

  – when, once in a blue moon, he ended up in the flowering bosom of nature, Apollon Apollonovich saw the same thing here as we did; that is: he saw – the flowering bosom of nature; but for us this bosom instantly disintegrated into characteristics: into violets, buttercups, dandelions and pinks; but the senator reduced these particulars once more to a unity. We, of course, would say:

  ‘There is a buttercup!’

  ‘There is a forget-me-not! …’

  Apollon Apollonovich said simply, and briefly:

  ‘Flowers …’

  ‘A flower …’

  Let it be said between ourselves: Apollon Apollonovich for some reason considered all flowers to be bluebells … –

  He would even have characterized his own house with laconic brevity, a house which for him consisted of walls (forming squares and cubes), cut-through windows, parquets, chairs, tables; after that – the details began.

  The lackey entered the corridor …

  And here it will do no harm to remember: the things that fleeted past (the pictures, the grand piano, the mirrors, the mother-of-pearl, the incrustation of the small tables), – in a word, everything that had fleeted past, could have no spatial form: it was all of it a mere irritation of the cerebral membrane, if not a chronic indisposition … perhaps, of the cerebellum.

  The illusion of a room took form; and then it would fly apart without trace, erecting beyond the limit of consciousness its misty planes; and when the lackey slammed behind him the heavy doors to the drawing-room, when his boots hammered along the small, resonant corridor, it was only a hammering in the temples: Apollon Apollonovich suffered from haemorrhoidal rushes of blood.

  Behind the slammed door there turned out to be no drawing-room: there turned out to be … cerebral spaces: convolutions, grey and white matter, the pineal gland; while the heavy walls, that consisted of sparkling spray (caused by the rush of blood) – the bare walls were only a leaden and painful sensation: of the occipital, frontal, temporal and sincipital bones belonging to the respected skull.

  The house – the stone colossus – was not a house: the stone leviathan was the senatorial head: Apollon Apollonovich sat at the desk, over dossiers, depressed by migraine, with the sensation that his head was six times larger than it ought to be, and twelve times heavier than it ought to be.

  Strange, highly strange, exceedingly strange qualities!

  Our Role

  Petersburg streets possess an indubitable quality: they turn passers-by into shadows; while Petersburg streets turn shadows into people.

  We have seen this in the example of the mysterious stranger.

  He, having arisen like a thought in the senatorial head, was for some reason also connected with the senator’s own house; there he had surfaced in the memory; but most of all he assumed substantial form on the prospect, immediately following the senator in our modest story.

  From the crossroads to the little restaurant on Millionnaya Street we have described the stranger’s route; we have described, further, his sitting in the little restaurant until the notorious word ‘suddenly’, which interrupted everything; suddenly something happened to the stranger there; some unpleasant sensation visited him.

  Let us now investigate his soul; but first let us investigate the little restaurant; we have a reason for doing so; after all, if we, the author, mark out with pedantic exactitude the route of the first person who comes along, the reader will believe us: our action is justified in the future. In the natural investigation we have undertaken we have merely anticipated Senator Ableukhov’s wish that an agent of the Secret Political Police Department should steadfastly follow the stranger’s steps; the good senator would himself take up the telephone receiver in order by means of it to convey his thought to the proper quarters; fortunately for him, he did not know the stranger’s abode (while we do know that abode). We shall go and meet the senator; and for the time being let the lightminded agent kick his heels in his Department – we shall be the agent.

  But wait, wait …

  Have we not gone and put our foot in it? I mean to say, what kind of agent are we? There is an agent already. And he is not asleep, my goodness, no, he is not asleep. Our role has proved to be an idle role.

  When the stranger vanished through the doors of the little restaurant and we were seized by a desire to follow there too, we turned round and caught sight of two silhouettes that were slowly cutting through the fog; one of the two silhouettes was rather fat and tall, clearly standing out by his build; but we could not discern the face of the silhouette (silhouettes do not have faces); all the same, we did make out: a new, opened, silk umbrella, dazzlingly shining galoshes and a semi-sealskin hat with earflaps.

  The mangy little figure of a short-statured little gentleman constituted the principal content of the second silhouette: the silhouette’s face was visible enough: but we did not manage to see this face either, for we were astonished by the hugeness of the wart on it: thus did facial substantia screen from us the insolent accidentia (as it is fitting that it should act in this world of shadows).

  Making it appear as though we are looking into the clouds, we have let slip the dark couple, in front of the restaurant door that dark couple stopped and said a few words in human language:

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘Here …’

  ‘Just as I thought: precautions have been taken: that’s in case you didn’t show it to me by the bridge.’

  ‘And what precautions have you taken?’

  ‘Well, I’ve placed a man there, in the little restaurant.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve no business to go taking precautions! Why, I’ve told you, told you: told you a hundred times …’

  ‘Forgive me, I did it out of zeal …’

  ‘You ought to have consulted me first … Your precautions are fine …’

  ‘You say so yourself …’

  ‘Yes, but your fine precautions …’

  ‘Hm …’

  ‘What? … Your fine precautions will make a mess of it all …’

  The couple went five paces, stopped; and again said a few words in human language.

  ‘Hm! … I’ll have to … Hm! … Wish you success now …’

  ‘Well what doubt can there be of it: the undertaking has been set like the mechanism of a clock; unless I stop this deed now, then, believe me as a friend: the deed is in the bag!’

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Damned head cold …’

  ‘But I’m talking about the deed …’

  ‘Hm …’

  ‘The souls are tuned like instruments: and make up the concert – what are you saying? It remains for the conductor to brandish his baton from the wings. Senator Ableukhov must issue a circular, while the Elusive One is in for …’

  ‘Damned head cold.’

  ‘Nikolai Apollonovich is in for … In a word: a concert trio, where Russia is the pit. Do you understand me? Do you understand? But why do you still say nothing?’

  ‘Listen: you ought to take a salary …’

  ‘No, you won’t understand me!’


  ‘I will: hm-hm-hm – you definitely don’t have enough handkerchiefs.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘But your cold! … And the wild beast – hm-hm-hm – won’t go away?’

  ‘Well, where is there for him to …’

  ‘Well then, you should draw a salary …’

  ‘A salary! I don’t work for a salary: I’m an artist, do you understand – an artist!’

  ‘Of a sort …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing: I’m curing myself with a tallow candle.’

  The small figure took out its snot-covered handkerchief and again made a squelching sound with its nose.

  ‘But I’m talking about the deed! Make sure you tell them that Nikolai Apollonovich has given a promise …’

  ‘A tallow candle is a marvellous remedy for a cold …’

  ‘Tell them all that you heard it from me: this deed has been set …’

  ‘In the evening you smear it on your nostrils, in the morning you’re as right as rain …’

  ‘The deed has been set, I tell you again, like the mech …’

  ‘Your nose is cleared, you breathe freely …’

  ‘Like the mechanism of a clock!’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘The mechanism, the devil take it, of a clock.’

  ‘My ear’s blocked: I can’t hear.’

  ‘The-me-chanism-of-a …’

  ‘Achoo! …’

  Under the wart the handkerchief again began to ply: the two shadows were slowly flowing away into the dank murk. Soon the shadow of the fat man in the semi-sealskin hat with the earflaps appeared again out of the fog and looked absent-mindedly at the spire of Peter and Paul.

  And went into the little restaurant.

  And Moreover the Face Glistened

  Reader!

  ‘Suddenly’ is familiar to you. Then why, like an ostrich, do you hide your head in your feathers at the approach of a fateful and inexorable ‘suddenly’? Start talking to you about an alien ‘suddenly’, and you will probably say:

  ‘Dear sir, excuse me: you must be an out-and-out decadent.’

  And you will probably expose me as a decadent.

  You are even now before me as an ostrich; but in vain do you hide – you know me perfectly well: you also understand the inexorable ‘suddenly’.

  Then listen …

  Your ‘suddenly’ steals up behind your back, indeed sometimes it precedes your appearance in the room; in the first case you are made horribly uneasy: in your back an unpleasant sensation develops, as though a gang of invisible beings had begun to throng into your back, as through an open door; you turn round and ask the hostess:

  ‘Madam, will you permit me to close the door; I have a peculiar nervous sensation: I cannot abide sitting with my back to an open door.’

  You laugh, she laughs.

  But sometimes upon entering the drawing-room you will be greeted by a general:

  ‘But we were just talking about you …’

  And you reply:

  ‘I expect heart gave the tidings to heart.’

  They all laugh. You also laugh: as though here there were no ‘suddenly’.

  But sometimes the alien ‘suddenly’ will look at you from behind the shoulders of your interlocutor, wishing to get your own ‘suddenly’ by scent. Between you and your interlocutor there will take place something that suddenly makes your eyes flutter, while your interlocutor will become drier. Afterwards there will be something he will not forgive you all his life.

  Your ‘suddenly’ is nourished by your cerebral play; the vileness of your thoughts it devours gladly, like a dog; it swells up, you melt like a candle; if your thoughts are vile and a trembling takes possession of you, then ‘suddenly’, having gorged itself with all forms of vileness, like a fattened but invisible dog, it will everywhere begin to precede you, provoking in a casual observer the impression that you are screened from view by a black cloud invisible to the gaze: this is the shaggy ‘suddenly’, your faithful domovoi (I knew an unfortunate fellow whose black cloud was very nearly visible to the gaze: he was a literary man …)

  We left the stranger in the little restaurant. Suddenly the stranger turned round impetuously; it seemed to him that a certain nasty slime, penetrating under his collar, had seeped along his backbone. But when he turned round, there was no one behind his back: gloomily, it seemed, gaped the door of the restaurant entrance; and from there, from the door, thronged the invisible.

  At this point he pondered: up the staircase was coming, of course, the person he had been waiting for; in a moment or two he would come in; but he did not come in; in the doorway there was no one.

  And when my stranger turned away from the door, through the doorway immediately walked the unpleasant fat man; and, as he went up to the stranger, he made a floorboard creak; the yellowish face, shaven, very slightly inclined to one side, floated smoothly in its own double chin; and moreover the face glistened.

  Here my stranger turned round and started: the person was cordially waving a semi-sealskin hat with earflaps at him:

  ‘Aleksandr Ivanovich …’

  ‘Lippanchenko!’

  ‘Yes, it’s me …’

  ‘Lippanchenko, you are making me wait.’

  The person’s shirt collar was tied with a necktie – satin-red, loud, and fastened with a large paste jewel, a dark yellow striped suit enveloped the person; while on his yellow shoes gleamed brilliant polish.

  Taking a seat at the stranger’s table, the person exclaimed contentedly:

  ‘A pot of coffee! … And – listen, some cognac: my bottle’s there, registered under my name …’

  And around them was heard:

  ‘You – did you drink with me?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Did you eat? …’

  ‘I ate …’

  ‘Well, with your permission, let me tell you that you’re a pig …’

  ‘Be more careful,’ cried my stranger: the unpleasant fat man, called Lippanchenko by the stranger, was just about to put his dark yellow elbow on a sheet of newspaper: the sheet of newspaper covered the little bundle.

  ‘What?’ Here Lippanchenko, lifting the sheet of newspaper, caught sight of the small bundle: and Lippanchenko’s lips trembled.

  ‘Is that … that … it?’

  ‘Yes: that’s it.’

  Lippanchenko’s lips continued to tremble: Lippanchenko’s lips recalled little pieces of sliced-up salmon, – not yellow-red, but buttery and yellow (the kind of salmon you have probably eaten with bliny in a poor household).

  ‘How careless you are, Aleksandr Ivanovich, may I observe to you.’ Lippanchenko stretched out his coarse fingers towards the little bundle; and they shone, the fake stones of the rings on his swollen fingers with their bitten nails (the nails actually showed dark traces of a brown dye that corresponded to the colour of his hair; an attentive observer could draw the conclusion: the person dyed his hair).

  ‘I mean, one movement (just put your elbow on it), and there might be a … catastrophe …’

  And with especial caution the person moved the small bundle to a chair.

  ‘Well, yes, with both of us there would be …’ the stranger joked unpleasantly. ‘We would both be …’

  He was evidently enjoying the confusion of the person whom – let us say for our part – he hated.

  ‘I’m concerned, of course, not for myself, but for …’

  ‘Of course, of course you’re not concerned for yourself, but for …’ the stranger agreed with the person.

  While around them was heard:

  ‘Don’t you call me a pig …’

  ‘But I don’t mean it like that.’

  ‘Yes you do: you’re annoyed for having paid … So what if you paid; you paid that time, I’ll pay today …’

  ‘All right, my friend, I’ll smother you with kisses for this good deed of yours …’

  ‘Don’t be angry about the “pig”: but I’ll eat and eat …’


  ‘All right, go on and eat, eat: it’s more proper that way.’

  ‘Here now, Aleksandr Ivanovich, sir, here now, my dear chap, take this little bundle’ – Lippanchenko looked sideways – ‘to Nikolai Apollonovich, immediately.’

  ‘To Ableukhov?’

  ‘Yes: to him – for safe keeping.’

  ‘But let me look after it: the little bundle can reside at my place …’

  ‘Inconvenient: you may be arrested; whereas there it will be in safe hands. One way or the other, the house of Senator Ableukhov … By the way: have you heard about the old fellow’s latest crucial pronouncement? …’

  Here, leaning over, the fat man began to whisper something into my stranger’s ear:

  ‘Shoo-shoo-shoo …’

  ‘Ableukhov?’

  ‘Shoo …’

  ‘To Ableukhov? …’

  ‘Shoo-shoo-shoo …’

  ‘With Ableukhov? …’

  ‘No, not with the senator, but with the senator’s son: if you’re at his place, then do me a favour and give him along with the little bundle – this little letter: here it is …’

  Straight to the stranger’s face did Lippanchenko’s narrow-browed head lean; in their sockets the gnawing little eyes hid searchingly; his lips quivered imperceptibly and sucked the air. The stranger with the small black moustache listened closely to the fat gentleman’s whispering, attentively trying to make out the contents of the whisper that was being drowned by the voices in the restaurant; the voices in the restaurant covered Lippanchenko’s whisper; something was imperceptibly rustling from the repulsive lips (like the rustle of many hundreds of arthropodal ants’ legs above a dug-up anthill) and it seemed as if that whisper had terrible contents, as if what was being whispered about here was worlds and planetary systems; but one had only to listen closely to the whispering in order to realize that the terrible contents of the whispering were actually humdrum contents:

  ‘Give him the letter …’

  ‘Oh, is Nikolai Apollonovich in special liaison, then?’

  The person screwed up his small eyes and gave a click of his small tongue.