Petersburg (Penguin Classics)

by Andrei Bely

  The pulses ran across his body, chasing one another.

  And, lagging behind his body, they were outside his body, forming a throbbing and conscious contour to every side of him; half an arshin away; and – more; here he quite distinctly realized that it was not he who was thinking, or rather: it was not his brain that was thinking, but this throbbing, conscious contour outlined outside his brain; in this contour all the pulses, or projections of pulses, were instantly transformed into thoughts that concocted themselves; a stormy life was, in its turn, progressing in his eyeballs; the ordinary points that were visible in the light and projected in space – now flared up like sparks; leapt out of their orbits into space; began to dance around him, forming a tiresome tinsel, forming a swarming cocoon – of lights: half an arshin away; and – more; this was what the pulsation was: now it flared up.

  This was also what the swarms of thoughts that thought themselves were.

  The spider’s web of these thoughts – he realized – did not at all think what the owner of that web would like to think, or rather, not at all what he tried to think with the help of his brain, and that – it ran away from the brain (to tell the truth – the brain’s convolutions merely strained; there were no thoughts in them); only the pulses thought, as they showered diamonds – of sparks and little stars; over this golden swarm ran a kind of photopod, reverberating in it like an affirmation.

  ‘But it’s ticking, it’s ticking …’

  Another one ran past …

  What thought itself was an affirmation of the situation that his brain rejected, and with which it obstinately struggled: the sardine tin was here, the sardine tin was here; the hand was running round it; the hand had grown weary of running: it was running to the fateful point (that point was already near) … Now the luminous, fluttering pulses showered frantically, like the sparks of a bonfire if you gave the bonfire a good bang with a cudgel – now they showered: beneath them a kind of blue insubstantiality revealed itself, from which a flashing centre instantly pierced the perspiration-covered head of the person who had lain down here, with its prickly and trembling lights resembling a gigantic spider that had run here from other worlds, and – reflecting itself in his brain: –

  – unendurable roars would resound, roars you might not be able to hear, because before they struck your eardrum, you would have a shattered eardrum (and a few other things as well) –

  – The blue insubstantiality had disappeared with it – the flashing centre beneath the onrushing luminous tinsel; but with a mad movement Nikolai Apollonovich flew out of bed at this point: the current of thoughts that were not thought by him instantly turned into pulses; the pulses attacked and throbbed: in his temple, his throat, his neck, his arms, and … not outside these organs.

  He thudded on bare feet; and ended up in the wrong place: not at the door, but in a corner.

  It was getting light.

  Quickly he threw on his long johns and thudded into the dark corridor: why, why? Oh, he was simply afraid … He had simply been gripped by an animal instinct for his precious life; but he did not want to go back from the corridor; he did not have the courage to look into his rooms; he had neither the strength nor the time to go searching for the bomb again; everything in his head had got mixed up, and he could remember neither the minute nor the hour when the time would expire: any moment could turn out to be the fatal one. What remained was for him to shiver here in the corridor until it was properly daylight.

  And withdrawing into the corner, he squatted down.

  Meanwhile the moments were slowly expiring within him; the minutes seemed hours; many hundreds of hours had already flowed by; the corridor turned dark blue; the corridor turned grey: proper daylight was beginning.

  Nikolai Apollonovich was more and more convinced of the nonsensicality of the thoughts that thought themselves; these thoughts were now inside his brain; and his brain coped with them; and when he decided that the time had long ago expired, the version of the sardine tin’s having been taken away by the second lieutenant somehow diffused itself of its own accord around him in the vapours of the most blissful images, and Nikolai Apollonovich, squatting down in the corridor – whether out of a sense of safety, or out of tiredness – well, well: he took a nap.

  He came to when something slippery touched him on the forehead; and, opening his eyes, he saw – the slavering muzzle of the bulldog: in front of him the bulldog was snorting, and wagging its tail; indifferently he fended off the bulldog with his hand and was about to resume what he had been doing before: to continue something over there; twirl some vortices to the end, in order to make a discovery. And – suddenly realized: why was he on the floor?

  Why was he in the corridor?

  Half asleep, he trudged off back to his room: as he approached his bed, he was still twirling his sleepy vortices to an end …

  – There was a roar: he understood everything.

  – Afterwards, on long winter evenings, Nikolai Apollonovich often returned to the heavy roar; it was a peculiar roar, not comparable with anything else; deafening and – not sharp in the slightest; deafening and – hollow: with a metallic, bass, oppressive quality; and after it, everything died away.

  Soon voices were heard, the uneven thud of bare feet and the quiet howling of the bulldog; the telephone began to rattle: at last he opened the door of his room; a jet of cold wind burst against his chest; and the room was filled with lemon-yellow smoke; in the jet of wind and the smoke, he stumbled quite incongruously over some kind of splintered thing; and he more sensed than understood that it was a piece of the shattered door. There was the pile of cold bricks, there were the shadows, running: out of the smoke; singed shreds of rugs – how had they got there? Now one of the shadows, thrusting itself through the pall of smoke, barked rudely at him.

  ‘Hey, what are you doing here: can’t you see there’s been a disaster in the house?’

  And another voice rang out there; and – one heard:

  ‘The scoundrels, they all ought to be …’

  ‘It’s me,’ he ventured.

  He was interrupted.

  ‘A bomb …’

  ‘Ai!’

  ‘Yes, a bomb … it exploded …’

  ‘?’

  ‘In Apollon Apollonovich’s room … in his study …’

  ‘?’

  ‘Thank God, he’s unharmed and all right …’

  Let us remind the reader: Apollon Apollonovich had absentmindedly taken the sardine tin out of his son’s room into his study; and had forgotten about it altogether; he was, of course, in ignorance as to the sardine tin’s contents.

  Nikolai Apollonovich ran over to the place where the door had been only a moment before; and where – there was now no door: there was an enormous gaping hole, from which clouds of smoke were coming; if you had looked into the street, you would have seen: a crowd was gathering; a policeman was pushing it back off the pavement; and gawpers gaped, their heads thrown back, as from the black holes of the windows and from the crack that had been cut across the house, yellowish-lemon clouds ominously gushed out.

  Nikolai Apollonovich, himself not knowing why, went running back away from the gaping hole; and ended up he knew not where –

  – on the snow-white bed (right on the pillow!) sat Apollon Apollonovich, pressing his bare legs against his hairy chest; and he was in his undershirt; embracing his knees in his arms, he was unrestrainedly – not sobbing, but roaring; in the general hubbub he had been forgotten; with him there was no lackey … not even Semyonych; there was no one to comfort him; and there, all on his own … to the point of strain, of hoarseness … –

  – Nikolai Apollonovich rushed towards this helpless little body as a nurse rushes in the middle of the roadway towards the three-year-old mite that has been entrusted to her, and which she has forgotten in the middle of the roadway; but this helpless little body – the mite – at the sight of the son running towards it – leapt up from the pillow and – waved its arms: with indescriba
ble horror and with an unchildlike sprightliness.

  And – how he launched himself into flight, leaping into the corridor!

  With a cry of ‘Stop him!’, Nikolai Apollonovich ran after him: after this mad little figure (though actually, which of them was mad?); they both rushed into the depths of the corridor past the smoke and the rags and the gestures of thundering persons (some fire or other was being put out); the flickering of these strangely bawling little figures was eerie – in the depths of the corridor; the undershirt fluttered in flight; their heels thudded, fleeted; Nikolai Apollonovich launched himself in pursuit, hopping, limping on his right leg; he gripped his falling long johns in one hand; while with his other hand he strove to grasp hold of the fluttering hem of his father’s undershirt.

  He ran, shouting:

  ‘Wait …

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘But stop!’

  Having run all the way to the door that led to the place that had no comparison, Apollon Apollonvich caught hold of the door with a cunning inaccessible to the mind; and in a most rapid fashion found himself in that place: bolted into that place.

  For a moment, Nikolai Apollonovich shrank back from the door; for a moment, distinctly engraved were: the turn of the head, the sweaty brow, the lips, the side-whiskers and the eyes that shone like molten stone; the door slammed shut; everything vanished; the door catch clicked; he had bolted into that place.

  Nikolai Apollonovich hammered desperately at the door; and beseeched – to the point of strain, of hoarseness:

  ‘Open up …

  ‘Let me in …’

  – And –

  ‘Aaa … aaa … aaa …’

  He collapsed in front of the door.

  He dropped his arms to his knees; threw his head into his hands; at this point he lost consciousness; with a thudding of feet, the lackeys came running towards him. They dragged him into his room.

  Here we shall place a full stop.

  We shall not enter into describing how the fire was put out, how the senator, in a most violent fit of palpitations, explained himself to the police: after this explanation there was a conference of specialist doctors: the doctors found him to be suffering from a dilation of the aorta. And yet: during all the days of the strike, in the chanceries, offices, ministerial chambers he made his appearance – exhausted and thin; his powerful little bass voice rumbled persuasively – in the chanceries, offices, ministerial chambers – with a hollow, oppressive quality. We shall merely observe: he succeeded in proving something. Someone out there was arrested; and then – was released because of insufficient evidence; connections were brought into play; and the case was dropped. No one else was apprehended. Throughout all these days his son lay in attacks of nervous fever, never once recovering consciousness; and when he came to, he saw that he was alone with his mother; there was no longer anyone else in the lacquered house. Apollon Apollonovich had moved to the country estate and stayed there all that winter amidst the snow, taking an indefinite vacation; and from that vacation went into retirement. Before doing so, he prepared for his son: a passport for foreign travel, and money. Ableukhova, Anna Petrovna, accompanied Nikolenka. She did not return until the summer: Nikolai Apollonovich did not return to Russia until his father’s decease.

  END OF THE EIGHTH CHAPTER

  Epilogue

  The February sun is on the wane.1 Shaggy cactuses are scattered here and there. Soon, soon from the gulf to the shore, sails will come flying; they fly: angularly winged, swaying; a small cupola has receded into the cactuses.

  Nikolai Apollonovich, in a blue gandurah,2 in a bright-red Arabian chechia,3 freezes in a squatting position; an extremely long tassel falls from his chechia; his silhouette is distinctly sculpted against the flat roof; beneath him are the village square and the sounds of a tom-tom: they strike the ears with a hollow, oppressive quality.

  Everywhere there are the white cubes of the wretched little village houses; a bellowing Berber is driving on a little donkey with shouts; a heap of branches shows silver on the donkey; the Berber is olive-coloured.

  Nikolai Apollonovich does not hear the sounds of the tom-tom; and he does not see the Berber; he sees what is standing in front of him: Apollon Apollonovich – bald, small, old – sitting in a rocking chair, swinging the rocking chair with a nod of his head and a motion of his foot; he remembers this movement …

  In the distance an almond tree shows pink; that jagged peak is bright violet and amber; that peak is Zaghouan,4 and that cape is Cape Carthage. Nikolai Apollonovich has rented a cottage from an Arab in a coastal village near Tunis.

  Beneath the weight of sparkling, snowy caps, the fir boughs have sagged: shaggy and green; ahead is a five-columned wooden building; snowdrifts have flung themselves over the railings of the terrace-like hills; there is on them the pink reflection of a February sunset.

  A small, round-shouldered figure has appeared – in warm felt boots, mittens, leaning on a stick; its fur collar is raised; a fur hat is pulled down over its ears; it is making its way along a cleared path; it is being helped along by the arm; the figure that is doing the helping has a warm rug in its hand.

  Spectacles have appeared on Apollon Apollonovich in the country; they have steamed up in the frost and through them neither the jagged forest distances nor the smoke of the tiny villages, nor the jackdaws have been visible; shadows are visible, and more shadows; between them are the lunar gleaming of shoals and the little squares of the parqueted floor; Nikolai Apollonovich is tender, attentive, sensitive – with his head inclined low, he steps across – out of the shadow – into the lace of the light from the street lamp; steps across: out of that bright lace – into the shadow.

  In the evening the little old man sits at the table in his room amidst round frames; and in the frames there are portraits: of an officer in buckskin breeches, of an old woman in a satin head-dress; the officer is his father; the old woman in the head-dress is his deceased mother, née Svargina. The little old man is scribbling his memoirs, so that they may see the light in the year of his death.

  They have seen the light.

  Those most witty memoirs: Russia knows them.

  The sun’s flame is impetuous: it burns crimson in your eyes; you turn away, and – it strikes you frenziedly in the back of your neck; it makes even the desert seem greenish and deathly pale: as a matter of fact, life is deathly pale; it would be good to remain here for ever – by the deserted shore.

  In a thick pith helmet with a veil that has come unwound in the wind, Nikolai Apollonovich has sat down on a heap of sand; before him is an enormous, mouldering head – very soon now it will collapse into sandstone thousands of years old; – Nikolai Apollonovich has been sitting before the Sphinx for hours.

  Nikolai Apollonovich has been here for two years; he is studying in the museum at Bulaq.5 The ‘Book of the Dead’6 – and the writings of Manetho7 have been interpreted wrongly; here, for the searching eye, there is a wide expanse: Nikolai Apollonovich has vanished in Egypt; and in the twentieth century he foresees Egypt; all culture is like this mouldering head: everything has died; nothing has remained.

  It is good that he is thus engaged: sometimes, tearing himself from his schemes, it begins to seem to him that not everything has yet died; there are some kind of sounds; these sounds roar in Cairo: it is a peculiar roar; it resembles – that same sound: deafening and – hollow: with a metallic, bass, oppressive quality; and Nikolai Apollonovich – is drawn to mummies; that ‘incident’ has led him to mummies. Kant? Kant is forgotten.

  It has begun to be evening: and into the sunsetless twilight the piles of Gizeh8 stretch monstrously and threateningly; everything is expanded in them; and everything expands from them, in the dust that hangs in the air, dark brown lights begin to burn; and – it is stiflingly oppressive.

  Nikolai Apollonovich has leaned reflectively against the dead side of a pyramid.

  In an armchair, in the full blaze of the sun, the little old man sat motionle
ss: he kept looking at the old woman with his enormous cornflower-coloured eyes; his legs were wrapped in a rug (he had evidently lost the use of them); on his knees bunches of white lilacs had been placed; the little old man kept stretching towards the old woman, leaning out of the armchair with his whole body:

  ‘You say he’s finished it? … Then perhaps he’ll come?’

  ‘Yes: he’s putting his papers in order …’

  Nikolai Apollonovich had finally brought his monograph to an end.

  ‘What is it called?’

  And – the little old man beamed:

  ‘The monograph is called … em-em-em … “On the Instruction of Duauf”.’9 Apollon Apollonovich forgot absolutely everything: forgot the names of ordinary objects; but that word – Duauf – he firmly remembered; Kolenka had written about ‘Duauf’. One throws back one’s head and looks upwards, and there is the gold of green leaves: stormily it rages: blue sky and fleecy clouds and a little wagtail was running along the path.

  ‘He’s in Nazareth, you say?’

  Oh, and the thick mass of the bluebells! The bluebells were opening their lilac jaws; right there, amidst the bluebells, stood a movable armchair; and in it a wrinkled Apollon Apollonovich, with unshaven stubble showing silver on his cheeks – beneath a canvas sunshade.

  In 1913 Nikolai Apollonovich still continued to stroll about the fields, the meadows, the forests for days on end, observing the work in the fields with morose indolence; he had a peaked cap on; he wore a camel-coloured sleeveless jacket; his boots squeaked; a golden, wedge-shaped beard had changed him strikingly; while a lock of perfect silver stood out distinctly in the cap of his hair; this lock had appeared suddenly; his eyes had begun to ache in Egypt; he began to wear dark blue spectacles. His voice had grown coarser, while his face was covered in sunburn; his speed of movement was gone; he lived alone; he never invited anyone to see him; he never visited anyone; he was seen in church; it is said that of late he had been reading the philosopher Skovoroda.10