Petersburg (Penguin Classics)

by Bely, Andrei

  The appearance of the raznochinets with the small black moustache, for the first time after these last two months, filled Nikolai Apollonovich’s soul with complete terror. Nikolai Apollonovich quite distinctly remembered an exceedingly sad circumstance. Nikolai Apollonovich quite distinctly remembered all the most minor details of the situation in which he had given his promise and suddenly found those details murderous to himself.

  But why … – was it not so much that he had given a dreadful promise but rather that he had given the dreadful promise to a frivolous party?

  The answer to this question was exceedingly simple: Nikolai Apollonovich, in studying the methodology of social phenomena, had doomed the world to fire and the sword.

  And so now he turned pale, turned grey and at last turned green; his face even suddenly somehow began to turn dark blue; this latter tinge was probably caused by the atmosphere in the room, which was tobaccofied to the extreme.

  The stranger stood up, stretched, squinted tenderly at the little bundle and suddenly gave a childish smile.

  ‘Look, Nikolai Apollonovich’ – Nikolai Apollonovich started in fright – ‘… I haven’t really come to see you for tobacco, about tobacco, I mean … this stuff about tobacco is quite incidental …’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Tobacco is as tobacco does: but I haven’t really come to see you about tobacco, but about business …’

  ‘How pleasant.’

  ‘And even not about business: the whole nub of the matter lies in a service – and you may, of course, refuse me this service …’

  ‘Oh come, how pleasant …’

  Nikolai Apollonovich turned even bluer; he sat plucking at a button on the sofa; and without managing to pluck the button off, began to pluck horsehair out of the sofa.

  ‘It’s extremely awkward for me, but remembering …’

  Nikolai Apollonovich started: the stranger’s shrill, high falsetto rent the air; this falsetto was preceded by a second’s silence; but that second seemed like an hour to him then, an hour did it seem. And now, hearing the shrill falsetto pronouncing the word ‘remembering’, Nikolai Apollonovich nearly shrieked out loud:

  ‘My proposal? …’

  But he at once took himself in hand; and he merely observed:

  ‘Very well, I am at your service,’ – and as he did so he thought that it was this politeness that had ruined him …

  ‘Remembering your sympathy, I have come …’

  ‘Anything I can do,’ Nikolai Apollonovich shrieked and as he did so thought that he was a thorough numbskull …

  ‘A small, oh, a very small service …’ (Nikolai Apollonovich listened with keen attention):

  ‘I’m sorry … could you let me have an ashtray …’

  Arguments in the Street Became More Frequent

  The days were foggy, strange: over the north of Russia poisonous October walked with frozen tread; and in the south he spread muggy mists. Poisonous October blew a golden sylvine whisper, and humbly that whisper lay down on the earth, – and humbly a rustling aspen crimson lay down on the earth, in order to twine and chase at the feet of the passing pedestrian, and to whisper, weaving from the leaves the yellow-red alluvial deposits of words. That sweet peeping of the blue tit, which in September bathes in a leafy wave, had not bathed in a leafy wave for a long time: and the blue tit itself now hopped lonely in a black mesh of branches, which like the mumbling of a toothless old man all autumn sends its whistle out of woodlands, leafless groves, front gardens and parks.

  The days were foggy, strange; an icy hurricane was already approaching in shreds of pewter and dark blue cloud; but everyone believed in the spring: the spring was what the newspapers wrote about, the spring was what the civil servants of the fourth class18 argued; the spring was what a certain government minister, popular at the time, pointed to; the scent, nay, even the violets of early May themselves were what the effusions of a certain Petersburg coursiste breathed.

  The ploughmen had long ago ceased to claw their eroding lands; the ploughmen left their harrows and wooden ploughs for a while; the ploughmen gathered under the cottages in their wretched little groups for the joint discussion of newspaper reports; talked and argued, in order suddenly in a unanimous throng to rush towards the barin’s colonnaded house, reflected in the torrents of the Volga, the Kama or even the Dnieper; through all the long nights above Russia shone the bloody glow of estates on fire, resolving itself by day into the blackness of smoky columns. But then in the deciduous brushwood thicket one could see a hidden detachment of shaggy-headed Cossacks aiming the muzzles of their rifles, as the shrieking alarm sounded; thereupon the Cossack detachment darted out on their shaggy horses: dark blue, bearded men, brandishing whips, rushed whooping for a long, long time here and there across the autumn meadows.

  Thus it was in the villages.

  But thus it was in the towns also. In workshops, print shops, barbers’ shops, dairies, little taverns, the same loquacious character hung about; with his black shaggy hat pulled down over his eyes and forehead, a hat that had evidently been acquired on the fields of bloodstained Manchuria;19 and with a Browning that had been borrowed from somewhere stuck in his side pocket, the loquacious character repeatedly shoved into the hands of the first person he encountered a badly typeset leaflet.

  Everyone was waiting for something, afraid of something, hoping for something; at the slightest noise they poured quickly on to the street, gathered into a crowd and again dispersed; in Arkhangelsk that was how the Lapps, the Karelians and the Finns acted; in Nizhne-Kolymsk – the Tungus; on the Dnieper – both Yids and khokhols. In Petersburg, in Moscow everyone acted like that: in the intermediate, higher and lower institutes of learning: waited, were afraid, hoped; at the slightest rustle poured quickly on to the street; gathered into a crowd and again dispersed.

  Arguments in the street became more frequent: with yardkeepers, caretakers; arguments in the streets with shabby non-commissioned police officers; the yardkeeper, the policeman and especially the district superintendent were most insolently picked on by: the worker, the sixth-form pupil, the artisan Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov and his spouse Ivanikha, even the shopkeeper – the merchant of the First Guild Puzanov, from whom in better and recently past days the superintendent had ‘obtained’ at times sturgeon, at times salmon, now unpressed caviare; but now in place of salmon, sturgeon and caviare against the district superintendent together with other ‘riffraff’ rose the merchant of the First Guild, his worthiness, Puzanov, a person not unknown, who had many times visited the governor’s house, for after all, – a fishery and then a steamship line on the Volga; after all, an ‘opportunity’ like this had kept the superintendent quiet. Grey himself, in his grey little coat he now walked like an imperceptible shadow, deferentially tucking up his sword and keeping his eyes down: and at his back were wordy comments, reprimands, laughter and even indecent abuse; while to all this the district militia officer said: ‘You won’t be able to win the trust of the population, go into retirement.’ But he went on trying to win their trust: whether by rebelling against the caprice of the government, or by entering into a special agreement with the inhabitants of the transit prison.

  Thus in those days was the district superintendent dragging out his life in Kemi: similarly did he drag it out in Petersburg, Moscow, Orenburg, Tashkent, Solvychevodsk, in a word, in those towns (provincial, district, downgraded) that go to make up the Russian Empire.

  Petersburg is surrounded by a ring of many-chimneyed factories.

  A many-thousand human swarm makes its way to them in the morning; and the suburbs seethe; and swarm with people. All the factories were at that time in fearful agitation, and the worker-representatives of the crowds had all to a man turned into loquacious characters; among them the Browning circulated; and one or two other things as well. There in those days the usual swarms were growing exceedingly and fusing one with another into a many-headed, many-voiced, enormous blackness; and then the factory inspector
reached for the telephone receiver: whenever he reached for the telephone receiver, that meant: a hail of stones would fly from the crowd at the window-panes.

  The agitation that embraced Petersburg in a ring seemed to penetrate even into the very centres of Petersburg, began to grip first the islands, then rushed across the Liteyny and Nikolayevsky Bridges; and from there went surging on to Nevsky Prospect: and although on Nevsky Prospect there was always the same circulation of the human myriapod, the constitution of the myriapod was changing in a striking manner; the observer’s experienced gaze had already long noted the appearance of the black shaggy hat, pulled down over the eyes, brought here from the fields of bloodstained Manchuria: then the loquacious character had begun to step along Nevsky Prospect, and suddenly the percentage of passing top hats had fallen; the loquacious character displayed here his true quality: he bustled with his shoulders, the fingers of his chilled and frozen hands stuffed into his sleeves; there also appeared on Nevsky the restless cries of the anti-government urchins who rushed at full tilt from the station to the Admiralty waving little journals, red in colour.

  In all the rest there were no changes: only once – crowds inundated the Nevsky in the company of clergy:20 they bore upon their arms a certain professor’s coffin, moving towards the station: but before them went a sea of green; bloodstained satin ribbons fluttered.

  The days were foggy, strange: poisonous October walked with frozen tread; the frozen dust rushed about the city in brown whirlwinds; and humbly the golden whisper of leaves lay down on the paths of the Summer Garden, and humbly at one’s feet a rustling crimson laid itself down, in order to twine and chase at the feet of the passing pedestrian, and to whisper, weaving from the leaves the yellow-red alluvial deposits of words: that sweet peeping of the blue tit, which all August bathed in the leafy wave, had not bathed in the leafy wave for a long time, and the blue tit of the Summer Garden itself now hopped lonely in a black mesh of branches, along the bronze fencing and over the roof of Peter’s little house.21

  Such were the days. And the nights – have you ever gone out at night, penetrated into the god-forsaken suburban vacant lots, in order to listen to the nagging, angry note on ‘oo’? Ooo-ooo-ooo: thus did space resound; the sound – was it a sound? If it was a sound, it was indubitably a sound from some other world; this sound attained a rare strength and clarity: ‘ooo-ooo-ooo’ resounded low in the fields of suburban Moscow, Petersburg, Saratov: but no factory siren blew, there was no wind; and the dogs were silent.

  Have you heard this October song of the year 1905? This song did not exist earlier; this song will not exist again: ever.

  He Calls for Me, My Delvig Dear

  As he walked up the red staircase of the Institution, his hand resting on the cold marble of the banister, Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov caught the toe of his shoe on the broadcloth and – stumbled; involuntarily his step became slower; consequently: it was perfectly natural that his eyes (without any preconceived bias) should linger on the enormous portrait of the minister, who was directing before him a sad and compassionate gaze.

  Along Apollon Apollonovich’s backbone gooseflesh ran: the Institution was poorly heated. To Apollon Apollonovich this white room seemed like a plain.

  He feared spatial expanses.

  He feared them more than zigzags, than broken lines and sectors; country landscape simply scared him: beyond the wastes of snow and ice there, beyond the jagged line of the forests the blizzard raised an intersectedness of aerial currents; there, by a stupid chance, he had very nearly frozen to death.

  This had been some fifty years ago.

  At this hour of his lonely freezing it had seemed as though someone’s cold fingers, heartlessly stuck into his chest, had stiffly stroked his heart: the icy hand had drawn him on; following the icy hand he had climbed the steps of his career, ever keeping before his eyes that same fateful, improbable expanse; there, from there – the icy hand had beckoned; and measurelessness flew: the Russian Empire.

  Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov sat tight behind the city wall for many years, hating with all his soul the lonely rural district distances, the smoke of the hamlets and the jackdaw that sat upon the scarecrow; only once did he dare to cross those distances by express train, travelling on an official errand from Petersburg to Tokyo.

  About his stay in Tokyo Apollon Apollonovich said nothing to anyone. Yes – apropos of the portrait of the minister … He would say to the minister:

  ‘Russia is an icy plain, over which wolves have roamed for many hundreds of years …’

  The minister would look at him with a velvety gaze that caressed the soul, smoothing with a white hand his grey, sleek moustache; and say nothing, and sigh. The minister accepted the large number of departments under his direction as an agonizing, sacrificial, crucifying cross; upon the completion of his service he had intended to …

  But he died.

  Now he was resting in his coffin; Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov was now completely alone – into the immeasurable spaces the ages fled away; ahead – an icy hand revealed: immeasurabilities.

  Immeasurabilities flew towards him.

  Rus, Rus! He saw – you, you!

  It was you who raised a howl with winds, with blizzards, with snow, with rain, with black ice – you raised a howl with millions of living, conjuring voices! At that moment it seemed to the senator as though a certain voice in the expanses were summoning him from a lonely grave mound; a lonely cross did not sway there; no lamp winked at the snowy whirlwinds; only the hungry wolves, gathering into packs, pitifully echoed the winds.

  Beyond doubt, with the passage of the years there had developed in the senator a fear of space.

  The illness had grown more acute: since the time of that tragic death; true, the image of the departed friend visited him at nights, stroking him with a velvety gaze in the long nights, stroking with a white hand his grey, sleek moustache, because the image of his departed friend was forever united in his consciousness now with a fragment of verse:

  And he is not – and Rus he has abandoned,

  The land he raised …

  In Apollon Apollonovich’s consciousness that fragment arose whenever he, Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov, crossed the reception room.

  After the quoted fragment of verse there would arise another fragment of verse:

  And it seems my turn has come,

  He calls for me, my Delvig dear,

  Companion of my lively youth,

  Companion of my mournful youth,

  Companion of our youthful songs,

  Our feasts and pure intentions’ way.

  Thither, to the crowd of familiar shades

  A genius gone from our midst for aye.

  The series of verse fragments was angrily interrupted:

  And o’er the earth new thunderclouds have gathered

  And the hurricane them …

  As he remembered the fragments, Apollon Apollonovich became particularly frosty; and with particular precision did he run out to present his fingers to the petitioners.

  Meanwhile the Conversation Had a Sequel

  Meanwhile Nikolai Apollonovich’s conversation with the stranger had a sequel.

  ‘I have been instructed,’ said the stranger, accepting an ashtray from Nikolai Apollonovich, ‘yes: I have been instructed to give you this little bundle here for safekeeping.’

  ‘Is that all!’ cried Nikolai Apollonovich, not yet daring to believe that the appearance of the stranger, which had troubled him so much, in no way concerned that dreadful proposal and was merely connected with a most inoffensive little bundle; and in a transport of distracted joy he was already on the point of smothering the little bundle in kisses; and his face covered with grimaces, manifesting a stormy life; he swiftly rose and moved towards the little bundle; but then for some reason the stranger also rose, and for some reason he suddenly rushed between the bundle and Nikolai Apollonovich; and when the hand of the senator’s dear son stretched out towards the notor
ious bundle, the stranger’s hand unceremoniously grabbed Nikolai Apollonovich’s fingers:

  ‘Be more careful, for God’s sake …’

  Nikolai Apollonovich, drunk with joy, muttered some incoherent apology and again distractedly stretched out his hand towards the object: and for a second time the stranger prevented him from taking the object, stretching out his hand in entreaty:

  ‘No: I earnestly ask you to be more careful, Nikolai Apollonovich, more careful …’

  ‘Aa … yes, yes …’ This time too Nikolai Apollonovich took nothing in: but no sooner had he caught hold of the bundle by the edge of the towel, than this time the stranger shouted into his ear in a voice of perfect anger …

  ‘Nikolai Apollonovich, I say to you a third time: be more careful …’

  This time Nikolai Apollonovich was surprised:

  ‘It’s literature, I expect? …’

  ‘Well, no …’

  Just then a distinct metallic sound rang out: something clicked; in the silence there was the thin squeak of a trapped mouse; at the same moment the soft stool was overturned and the stranger’s footsteps began to thud into the corner:

  ‘Nikolai Apollonovich, Nikolai Apollonovich,’ his frightened voice rang out, ‘Nikolai Apollonovich – a mouse, a mouse … Tell your servant quickly … to, to … clear it away: I find it … I cannot …’

  Nikolai Apollonovich, putting down the little bundle, marvelled at the stranger’s consternation:

  ‘Are you afraid of mice? …’

  ‘Quick, quick, take it away …’