Petersburg (Penguin Classics)

by Andrei Bely

  ‘From Finland’s icy cliffs to fiery Colchis …’24

  What? They hated him? … No: Russia stretched, that was all. And him? … Him they were going to … were going to … No: brr-brr … An idle cerebral game. Better to quote Pushkin:

  It’s time, my friend, it’s time … For peace the heart is asking.

  Day runs after day. And every day that’s passing

  Takes with it particles of life. Together you and I

  Intend to live some more. Look yonder – and we die.25

  Who was it he intended to live together with? His son? His son was a most dreadful scoundrel. With the ordinary man in the street? The ordinary man in the street was going to … Apollon Apollonovich remembered that he had once intended to spend his life with Anna Petrovna, on his retirement from government service to move to Finland, but then, then: Anna Petrovna had gone away – yes, sir, gone away! …

  ‘She went away, you know: there’s nothing to be done about it …’

  Apollon Apollonovich realized that he had no companion in life (until that moment he had somehow not found time to remember this) and that death in the line of duty would at least be an adornment to the life he had lived. He began to feel somehow childlike and sad and quiet – so quiet that it was almost comfortable. Around him all that was audible was the rustling of a streaming puddle, like someone’s plea – always about the same thing, about the same thing – about what had not been, but what could have been.

  Slowly the black-grey gloom that all night had suffocated everything and everyone was beginning to melt away. Slowly the black-grey gloom turned greyer and became a grey gloom: greyish at first; then only just perceptibly grey; while the walls of the houses, which had been illumined at night by the street lamps, began to fuse palely with the departing night. And it seemed that the reddish-brown street lamps, which only just now had been casting reddish-brown light around them, suddenly began to run low; and ran out completely by degrees. The feverishly burning flambeaux disappeared on the walls. At last, the street lamps became dim points that stared in astonishment into the greyish mist; and for a moment it seemed as though the grey row of lines, spires and walls with the imperceptibly lying planes of shadows, with the infinitude of window openings – was not a colossus of stones, but an airily risen lace that consisted of patterns of a most delicate craft, and through these patterns the dawn sky bashfully peeped.

  Towards Apollon Apollonovich rushed a poorly dressed young adolescent; a girl of about fifteen, bound with a kerchief; while behind her in the fog moved the outline of a man: bowler hat, walking stick, a coat, ears, moustache and nose; the outline had obviously accosted the adolescent with the most villainous propositions; Apollon Apollonovich considered himself a knight; unexpectedly to himself, he removed his top hat:

  ‘Dear lady, may I be so bold as to offer you my arm as far as your home: at this late hour it is not without risk for young persons of your sex to appear in the street.’

  The poorly dressed adolescent quite distinctly saw some kind of small black figure there raising a top hat before her; a shaven, dead head crept out from a collar for a moment and then crept back inside again.

  They walked in deep silence; everything seemed closer than it ought to: wet and old, receding into the ages; Apollon Apollonovich had seen all this before from a distance. And now – here it was: gateways, little houses, walls and, pressed fearfully against his arm, this adolescent for whom he, Apollon Apollonovich, was not a villain, not a senator: just a kind old man she did not know.

  They walked to a small green house with a crooked gate and a rotted gateway; at the little front entrance the senator raised his top hat and said farewell to the adolescent; and when the door slammed shut behind her, the old man’s mouth twisted mournfully; the dead lips began to chew on total emptiness; just then from somewhere in the distance came something that sounded like the singing of a violin bow: the singing of a Petersburg chanticleer, announcing something unknown and waking someone unknown.

  Somewhere to the side splashed the lightest of flames, and suddenly everything was illuminated, as a roseate ripple of cloudlets entered the flames like a mesh of mother-of-pearl; and in the breaks of that mesh a little blue scrap now showed blue. The row of lines and walls grew heavier and more clearly outlined; some kind of heavy weights emerged – both indentations and projections; entrance porches emerged, caryatids and the cornices of brick balconies; but in the windows, on the spires, a shimmering was more and more noticeable; from the windows, too, the ruby red gleam of the spires began to come.

  The lightest of lace turned into morning Petersburg: Petersburg decked itself out lightly and whimsically, there stood the sand-coloured houses with their five storeys; there stood the dark-blue houses, there the grey ones; the reddish-brown palace began to glow like dawn.

  END OF THE FOURTH CHAPTER

  Chapter the Fifth

  in which the story is told of the little gentleman with the wart near his nose and of the sardine tin with dreadful contents

  When morning and its star doth gleam,

  And it will play, the brilliant day,

  Then I, perhaps, will yet descend

  Beneath the tomb’s mysterious canopy.1

  A. Pushkin

  The Little Gentleman

  Nikolai Apollonovich was silent all the way.

  Nikolai Apollonovich turned round and stared straight into the face of the little gentleman who was running after him.

  ‘Excuse me: with whom …’

  The Petersburg slush rustled in melting streams; over there a carriage flew past into the fog with the light of the street lamps …

  ‘With whom do I have the honour …?’

  All the way he had heard the tiresome squelching of the galoshes that were running after him and had felt running over his back the small and inflamed eyes of that little bowler hat that had tagged along after him ever since he had left the gateway – back there, in the little alley.

  ‘Pavel Yakovlevich Morkovin …’

  And lo: Nikolai Apollonovich turned round and stared straight into the little gentleman’s face; the face said nothing: bowler hat, walking-stick, coat, little beard and nose.

  After that he fell into oblivion, turning away towards the wall, along which the shadowy little bowler hat ran all the way, slightly tilted to one side; the sight of this bowler hat filled him with revulsion; the Petersburg dampness began to crawl under his skin; the Petersburg slush rustled in melting streams; the ice-covered ground, the sleety drizzle soaked his coat.

  The bowler hat on the wall now expanded its shadow, now diminished; again the distinctive voice was heard behind Ableukhov’s back:

  ‘I bet it pleases you to assume this tone of indifference out of sheer coquetry …’

  All this had happened somewhere before.

  ‘Listen,’ Nikolai Apollonovich tried to say to the bowler hat. ‘I will confess I am surprised; I will confess I …’

  Then over there the first bright apple flared; there – a second one; there – a third; and a line of electric apples delineated the Nevsky Prospect, where the walls of the stone buildings are suffused by a fiery murk all the Petersburg night long and where the bright little restaurants display into the complete confusion of that night their brilliant blood-red signs, beneath which feathered ladies dart about, hiding the carmine of their painted lips in boas – among top hats, cap-bands, bowler hats, Russian shirts, overcoats – in the dim dregs of light that reveal from beyond the poor Finnish marshes above many-versted Russia the wide-open, white-hot jaws of Gehenna.

  Nikolai Apollonovich followed, kept following the running of the black, shadowy bowler hat along the walls, the age-old dark shadow; Nikolai Apollonovich knew: the circumstances of his encounter with the enigmatic Pavel Yakovlevich would not permit him to break off that encounter right there and then – by the little fence – with any real dignity for himself: he must with the greatest of caution ascertain what this Pavel Yakovlevich really knew abou
t him, what had really been said between him and his father; that was why he had been slow in taking his leave.

  Here the Neva opened out: the stone curve of the Winter Canal showed beneath itself a tearful spaciousness, and from there rushed onslaughts of wet wind; on the other side of the Neva rose the outlines of islands and houses; and sadly cast their amber eyes into the fog; and it seemed that they wept.

  ‘So you’re really not averse to, as it’s called, coming to an understanding with me?’ the same mangy little voice importuned behind his back.

  Here was the square; the same grey rock towered up on the square; the same horse flung out its hoof; but it was a strange thing: a shadow covered the Bronze Horseman. And it seemed that the Horseman was not there; there in the distance, on the Neva, stood some kind of fishing schooner; and a tiny light gleamed on board the schooner.

  ‘It’s time I was off home …’

  ‘Oh, come on: you can’t go home now!’

  And they walked across the bridge.

  Ahead of them walked a couple: a seaman of forty-five, dressed in black leather; he had a fur hat with earflaps, his cheeks were bluish and he had a bright reddish-brown beard with streaks of grey in it; his neighbour, quite simply a kind of giant in enormous boots, with a dark green wool felt hat, strode along – dark-browed, dark-haired, with a small nose and a small moustache. Both reminded one of something; and both walked through the open door of a little restaurant under a diamond sign.

  Under the letters of the diamond sign Pavel Yakovlevich Morkovin grabbed Ableukhov by the wing of his Nikolayevka with incomprehensible insolence:

  ‘This way, Nikolai Apollonovich, into the restaurant: here – that’s it – this way, sir! …’

  ‘But wait a moment …’

  Here Pavel Yakovlevich, keeping his hand on the wing of the overcoat, proceeded to yawn: he bent, stooped, and then stretched, bringing his open oral cavity right up to Nikolai Apollonovich, like some cannibal preparing to swallow Ableukhov: swallow him without fail.

  This fit of yawning passed to Ableukhov; the latter’s lips began to twist:

  ‘Aaa – a: aaaa …’

  Ableukhov tried to tear himself free:

  ‘No, it’s time I was going, it really is.’

  But the mysterious gentleman, having received the gift of the word, interrupted in a disrespectful manner:

  ‘Oh, I know you: are you bored?’

  And without letting him speak, interrupted him again:

  ‘Well, I’m bored, too: and what’s more, you can add, I’ve got a cold: all these past few days I’ve been trying to cure it with a tallow candle …’

  Nikolai Apollonovich was about to interject something, but his mouth was torn apart in a yawn:

  ‘Aaa: aaa – aaa! …’

  ‘Well, well – you see how bored you are!’

  ‘I just feel sleepy …’

  ‘Well, let us assume you are, yet all the same (please try to put yourself in my position): this is a rare occasion, a most r-r-are occasion …’

  There was nothing for it: Nikolai Apollonovich shrugged his shoulders the merest bit and with a barely perceptible disgust opened the restaurant door … Coat-hangers sagging with blackness: with bowler hats, sticks, coats.

  ‘A rare occasion, a most r-rare occasion,’ Morkovin said, snapping his fingers. ‘I tell you this straight: a young man of such exceptional talents as yourself? … Let him go? … Leave him in peace?! …’

  A thickish, white vapour containing some sort of pancake smell, mixed with the wetness from the street; with an icy burning sensation a numbered tag fell into the palm of a hand.

  ‘Hee-hee-hee,’ said Pavel Yakovlevich, letting himself go – he had taken off his coat and was rubbing his hands. ‘It’s interesting for me to get to know a young philosopher: don’t you think so?’

  The Petersburg street was beginning now, in the restaurant premises, to bake with a pungent fever, crawling over the body like dozens of tiny, red-legged ants:

  ‘You see, everyone knows me … Aleksandr Ivanovich, your father, Butishchenko, Shishiganov, Peppóvich …’

  After these words that had been spoken, Nikolai Apollonovich felt the most lively curiosity, aroused by three circumstances; in the first place: the stranger – for the umpteenth time! – had stressed his acquaintance with his father (that signified something); in the second place: the stranger had made a slip in speaking about Aleksandr Ivanovich and had mentioned this name and patronymic alongside his father’s name; lastly, the stranger had mentioned a number of surnames (Butishchenko, Shishiganov, Peppóvich) that sounded so strangely familiar …

  ‘She’s an interesting one, sir,’ Pavel Yakovlevich said to Ableukhov with a nudge, referring to a bright-lipped prostitute in a light orange dress with a Turkish cigarette in her teeth … ‘What’s your attitude to women? … Perhaps you ought to …’

  ‘?’

  ‘Oh well, I won’t go on about it: I can see you’re a modest fellow … And anyway there isn’t time … We’ve got one or two things to …’

  While all around was heard:

  ‘Who did you say?’

  ‘Who? … Ivan! …’

  ‘Ivan Ivanych! …’

  ‘Ivan Ivanych Ivanov …’

  ‘So then I said: Ivvan-Ivanch? … Eh? … Ivvan-Ivanch? … What are you up to, then, Ivvan-Ivanch? Ai, ai, ai! …’

  ‘And Ivan Ivanych …’

  ‘That’s all rubbish.’

  ‘No, it’s not rubbish … Ask Ivan Ivanych: there he is over there, in the billiards room … Ei, ei!’

  ‘Ivvan! …

  ‘Ivan Ivanych!’

  ‘Ivvan Ivvanych Ivanov …’

  ‘And what a swine you are, Ivan Ivanych!’

  Somewhere all hell was let loose; from in there a machine, like a dozen clamorous horns, throwing ear-splitting sounds into nowhere – suddenly bellowed: below the machine the merchant, Ivan Ivanych Ivanov, brandishing a green bottle, had risen into a dancing position with a lady in a tattered blouse; the grime of her dirty cheeks burned there; from beneath her reddish-brown hair, from beneath the crimson feathers that had fallen on to her forehead, pressing a handkerchief to her lips so as not to hiccup out loud, the goggle-eyed lady was laughing; and as she laughed her breasts began to bounce; Ivan Ivanych Ivanov gave a neighing laugh; the drunken audience thundered all around.

  Nikolai Apollonovich stared in amazement: how could he have ended up in such a filthy place and in such filthy company at the very moment when …

  ‘Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha,’ roared the same little drunken group, as Ivan Ivanych Ivanov seized his lady by the hair and bent her down to the floor, tearing out an enormous crimson feather; the lady wept, expecting blows; but they managed to tear the merchant away from her in time. Embitteredly, tormentedly inside the wild machine, roaring and beating tambourines, the terrible times of old, like a volcanic eruption of subterranean violence rushing at us out of the depths, grew in volume, spread and wept into the restaurant hall out of golden pipes:

  ‘Aa-ba-a-ate un-re-est of the paa-aassions …’2

  ‘Fall asle-e-eep thou ho-ope-less he-e-art …’

  ‘Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! …’

  A Glass of Vodka!

  There are the dirty rooms of an old, infernal drinking-house; there are its walls; these walls have been painted by a painter’s hand: the foam of the Finnish breakers, from where – out of the distances, penetrating the dank and greenish fog, the tarred rigging of a vessel was once more flying towards Petersburg on great, shadowy sails.

  ‘You must admit, now … Hey, two glasses of vodka! – you must admit …’ Pavel Yakovlevich Morkovin was shouting – he was white, white: bloated – utterly swollen, run to fat; yet his white, yellowish little face seemed thin, even though it had grown obese, run to fat: here, like a bag; there, like a nipple; here, like a little white wart …

  ‘I bet I present a riddle to you, over which your mental apparatus is working vainly at this moment …’
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  There, there was a table: at the table a seaman of forty-five, dressed in black leather (and apparently a Dutchman), leaning his bluish face over his glass.

  ‘Do you want picon essence in it? …’

  The Dutchman’s blood-red lips – for the umpteenth time – drew in the Allasch3 that burned like a flame …

  ‘So you’ll have picon essence, then?’

  And beside the Dutchman a ponderous colossus, who was as if made of stone, sat down heavily at the table.

  ‘Yes, with picon essence.’

  Black-browed, black-haired, the colossus laughed ambiguously in Nikolai Apollonovich’s direction.

  ‘Well, young man?’ came the stranger’s small tenor above his ear just then.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What have you got to say about my behaviour out in the street?’

  And it seemed that the colossus now struck his fist on the table – the crash of splitting boards, the chime of shattered glasses filled the restaurant.

  ‘What has anyone got to say about your behaviour in the street? Ach, why do you go on about the street? I must say I really don’t know.’

  Here the colossus produced a pipe from the heavy folds of his caftan, stuck it between his strong lips, and a heavy cloud of stinking baccy began to smoke above the table.

  ‘Shall we have another glass?’

  ‘Yes, let’s have another …’

  Before him gleamed the astringent poison; and wishing to calm himself, he fished on to his plate some kind of limp leaves or other; and stood there with the full glass in his hand, while Pavel Yakovlevich poked anxiously about, trying to get hold of a slippery saffron milkcap mushroom with his fork; and, having got hold of the slippery mushroom, Pavel Yakovlevich turned round (specks of dust hung on his moustache).