by Bely, Andrei
Aleksandr Ivanovich deemed it appropriate to remain silent about the phenomenon.
The phenomenon consisted of a strange hallucination: from time to time on the brownish-yellow wallpaper of his abode a spectral face would appear; at times the features of this face formed into a Semite; more often, however, Mongolian features showed through in this face: while the whole face was swathed in an unpleasant, saffron-yellow sheen. Now a Semite, now a Mongol fixed upon Aleksandr Ivanovich a gaze full of hatred. Aleksandr Ivanovich would then light a cigarette; and through the bluish clouds of tobacco smoke the Semite or Mongol would move his yellow lips, and it was as though within Aleksandr Ivanovich the same word kept echoing:
‘Helsingfors, Helsingfors.’
Aleksandr Ivanovich had been in Helsingfors after his escape from places not so very remote: with Helsingfors he had no particular connections: there he had merely met a certain person.
So why Helsingfors in particular?
Aleksandr Ivanovich continued to drink cognac. The alcohol worked with systematic gradualness; after vodka (wine was beyond his means) there followed a uniform effect: an undular line of thoughts became a zigzag one; its zigzags intersected; if he went on drinking, the line of thoughts would disintegrate into a series of fragmentary arabesques, brilliant for those who thought it; but only brilliant for him alone at that moment alone; he had only to sober up a little for the salt of brilliance to vanish off somewhere; and the brilliant thoughts seemed simply a muddle, for at those moments thought indubitably ran ahead of both tongue and brain, beginning to revolve with frantic speed.
Aleksandr Ivanovich’s excitement transmitted itself to Ableukhov: the bluish streams of tobacco smoke and twelve crushed cigarette ends positively irritated him; it was as though some invisible third person suddenly stood before them, raised aloft from the smoke and this little pile of ash here; this third person, having emerged, now exercised dominion over all.
‘Wait: perhaps I shall come out with you; I seem to have a splitting headache: out there, in the fresh air, we can continue our conversation without hindrance. Wait a moment. I’ll just change.’
‘That is an excellent idea.’
A sharp knock at the door broke off the conversation; before Nikolai Apollonovich had conceived the design of ascertaining who had knocked there, like one distracted, the half-drunk Aleksandr Ivanovich quickly threw open the door; there, from the door opening was thrust, almost flung, at the stranger a bald cranium with ears of enlarged dimensions; the cranium and Aleksandr Ivanovich’s head very nearly banged together; Aleksandr Ivanovich recoiled in bewilderment and looked at Nikolai Apollonovich, and, having looked at him, saw nothing but a … hairdresser’s dummy: a pale, waxen beau with an unpleasant, timid smile on a mouth that was stretched to the ears.
And again he cast a glance at the door, but in the wide open doorway stood Apollon Apollonovich with … a most enormous watermelon under his arm …
‘Indeed, sir, indeed, sir …’
‘I think I’m intruding …’
‘You know what, Kolenka, I’ve brought you this little melon – here …’
According to the tradition of the house in this autumn season Apollon Apollonovich, as he returned home, sometimes bought an Astrakhan watermelon, of which both he and Nikolai Apollonovich were fond.
For a moment all three were silent; each of them at that moment experienced a most candid, purely animal fear.
‘This, Papa, is a friend of mine from university … Aleksandr Ivanovich Dudkin …’
‘Indeed, sir … Very pleasant, sir …’
Apollon Apollonovich presented two of his fingers: those eyes were not staring dreadfully – was it the same face that had looked at him in the street – Apollon Apollonovich saw before him only a timid man who was obviously dejected by need.
Aleksandr Ivanovich seized the senator’s fingers with ardour; that other, fateful thing had flown away somewhere: Aleksandr Ivanovich saw before him only a pathetic old man.
Nikolai Apollonovich looked at them both with that unpleasant smile; but he too calmed down; the timid young man presented his hand to the weary skeleton.
But the hearts of all three were pounding; the eyes of all three avoided one another. Nikolai Apollonovich ran off to get ready: she had wandered under the windows there: that meant she was depressed; but today there awaited her – what awaited her? …
His thought was interrupted: from the cupboard Nikolai Apollonovich pulled out his domino and put it on over his frock coat; he pinned up its red, satin skirts with pins; on top of all the rest he put on his Nikolayevka.
Apollon Apollonovich, meanwhile, entered into conversation with the stranger; the disorder in his son’s room, the cigarettes, the cognac – all this had left in his soul an unpleasant and bitter after-taste; only Aleksandr Ivanovich’s replies brought him any calm: the replies were incoherent. Aleksandr Ivanovich kept flushing and his replies were not to the point. Before him he saw only kindly wrinkles; on those kindly wrinkles eyes looked: the eyes of a hunted man; and the rumbling voice was shouting something with a crack of hysteria; Aleksandr Ivanovich listened only to the last words, and caught at the very most a series of jerky exclamations:
‘You know … even when he was a schoolboy at the gymnasium, Kolenka knew all those birds … He used to read Kaigorodov …35
‘He had an inquiring mind …
‘But now he’s not the same: he’s given it all up …
‘And he doesn’t go to the university …’
Thus did the old man of sixty-eight jerkily shout at Aleksandr Ivanovich; something that resembled sympathy stirred in the heart of the Elusive One …
Into the room now came Nikolai Apollonovich.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Why, Papa, I’m off on business …’
‘You are … so to speak … With Aleksandr … with Aleksandr …’
‘With Aleksandr Ivanovich …’
‘Indeed, sir … With Aleksandr Ivanovich, then …’
But to himself Apollon Apollonovich thought: ‘What of it, perhaps it’s for the best: and perhaps the eyes were only something I dreamed …’ And at the same time Apollon Apollonovich also reflected that poverty was not a sin. Only why had they had to drink cognac (Apollon Apollonovich entertained a revulsion towards alcohol)?
‘Yes: we’re off on business …’
Apollon Apollonovich began to search for a suitable word:
‘Perhaps … you’d like to dine … And Aleksandr Ivanovich would like to dine with us …
Aleksandr Ivanovich looked at his watch:
‘But in any case … I don’t wish to get in your way …’
‘Goodbye, Papa …’
‘My respects, sir …’
When they opened the door and walked along the booming corridor, little Apollon Apollonovich appeared there, following them – in the semi-twilight of the corridor.
Yes, as they walked along in the semi-twilight of the corridor, Apollon Apollonovich stood there; craning his neck in pursuit of that couple, he was staring with curiosity.
All the same, all the same … Yesterday the eyes had looked:36 in them there were both hatred and fear; and those eyes had been real: they belonged to him, the raznochinets. And the zigzag was – most unpleasant, or had this not happened – never happened?
‘Aleksandr Ivanovich Dudkin … A student at the university.’
Apollon Apollonovich began to stalk off after them.
In the sumptuous vestibule Nikolai Apollonovich stopped before the old lackey, trying to catch one of his own thoughts that had run away.
‘Ye-ee … es …’
‘Very good, sir!’
‘E – er … The mouse!’
Nikolai Apollonovich continued helplessly to rub his forehead, trying to remember what it was he was supposed to express with the aid of the verbal symbol, mouse: this often happened to him, especially after he had been reading very serious treatises that consisted solely of un
imaginable words: after he had been reading those treatises every object, even more than that – every name of an object seemed to him inconceivable, and vice versa: everything conceivable proved to be completely insubstantial, without object. And apropos of this Nikolai Apollonovich pronounced a second time, with an injured look:
‘The mouse …’
‘Precisely so, sir!’
‘Where is it? Listen, what have you done with the mouse?’
‘With the one that was here earlier? Let it out on to the embankment …’
‘Really?’
‘For goodness’ sake, barin: the way we always do.’
Nikolai Apollonovich was distinguished by an unusual tenderness for these small creatures.
Their minds set at rest on the subject of the mouse’s fate, Nikolai Apollonovich and Aleksandr Ivanovich set off on their way.
As a matter of fact, both set off on their way because both thought someone was looking at them from the balustrade of the staircase both searchingly and sadly.
He Appeared, He Appeared
A certain gloomy building37 towered up on a certain gloomy street. It was just getting dark; the street lamps had begun to shine palely, lighting up the entrance porch; the fourth storeys were still crimson with the sunset.
It was to here that from every end of Petersburg individuals made their way; their complement was of a dual nature; their complement was, in the first place, enlisted from the working-class, shaggy-headed individual – in hats that had been brought from the bloodstained fields of Manchuria; in the second place, that complement was enlisted from protesters in general: the protester walked abundantly on long legs; he was pale and fragile; sometimes he fed on phytin,38 sometimes he also fed on cream; today he was walking with a most enormous gnarled stick; if my protester were to be placed in one pan of the scales, and his gnarled stick to be placed in the other, then the said implement would without doubt outweigh the protester; it was not quite clear who was following whom; whether the cudgel was capering in front of the protester, or whether he himself was walking along behind the cudgel; but most probable of all was that the cudgel hopped all on its own from Nevsky, Pushkin, the Vyborg Side, even from Izmailovskaya Rota; the protester was dragged after it; and he was panting, he could barely keep up; and the pert boy who was rushing about at the hour when the evening supplement of the newspaper came out – that pert boy could have toppled the protester, had the protester not been a worker, but only what he was – a protester.
This protester who was what he was had begun, not without purpose, to stroll about of late: around Petersburg, Saratov, Tsarevokokshaisk, Kineshma; not every day did he stroll thus … What happened was that one went out in the evening for a walk: quiet and harmonious was the sunset; and so harmoniously did a young lady laugh in the street; with the young lady my individual laughed softly and harmoniously – without any cudgel: chaffed, smoked; with a most good-natured air chatted with the yardkeeper, with a most good-natured air chatted with constable Brykachev.
‘Well now, Brykachev, I dare say you’re fed up standing here?’
‘Of course, barin: the work isn’t easy.’
‘Just wait: soon it will change.’
‘God grant that it will be to something good, sir; you can’t go against the evil spirit, as you yourself know.’
‘No, indeed, one can’t …’
The individual was not a bad sort; and constable Brykachev was not a bad sort either: and they both laughed; and a five-copeck piece flew into Brykachev’s fist.
The following day what happened again was that one went out for a walk – and what? Quiet and harmonious was the sunset; there was still the same contentment in nature; the theatres and the circuses were all in action; the urban water supply was also in good working order; and – yet no: everything was all wrong.
Cutting across a public garden, a street, a square, shifting dolefully from one foot to the other in front of the monument to a great man, yesterday’s good-natured individual began to walk with his enormous cudgel; sternly, silently, solemnly, so to speak, with emphasis, the individual advances his feet in galoshes and lacing boots with turned-up flaps; sternly, silently, solemnly the individual strikes his cudgel on the pavement; with constable Brykachev not a word; and constable Brykachev does not say a word, either, but just stares into space, with determination.
‘Move along now, gentleman, move along, don’t block the thoroughfare.’
And one looks: somewhere superintendent Podbrizhny is circulating.
My protester’s eye fairly jumps: this way and that way; have any other protesters like himself gathered in a little group in front of the monument to the great man? Have they gathered on the square in front of the transit prison? But the monument to the great man is surrounded by police; while on the square there is no one.
He walks, he walks, my individual, sighs with commiseration; and returns to his quarters; and his mother gives him tea with cream to drink. – You may as well know: that day the newspapers had criticized something: something – some: measure – of prevention, so to speak: whatever it was; if they criticized a measure – the individual would begin to ferment.
The following day there is no measure: and the individual is not on the streets either; and my individual is content, and my constable Brykachev is content; and superintendent Podbrizhny is content. The monument to the great man is not surrounded by police.
Did my protesting individual appear on this nice October day? He appeared, he appeared! In the street the shaggy Manchurian hats also appeared; both those individuals and those hats dissolved in the crowd; but this way and that way the crowd wandered aimlessly; while the individuals and the Manchurian hats made their way in one direction – to the gloomy building with the crimson summit; and outside the gloomy building that was crimson with sunset the crowd was exclusively made up of individuals and hats; a young lady from an educational establishment was also involved in it all.
But now they were barging, and barging at the entrance-porch doors – how they barged, how they barged! And how could it be otherwise? A working man has no time to spend on propriety: and there was a bad smell; while the crush began on the pavement.
Along the corner, near the pavement, good-naturedly embarrassed, a small detachment of police stamped their feet up and down (it was cold); while the officer in charge was even more embarrassed; grey himself, in a little grey coat, he was shouting like an unnoticed shadow, deferentially tucking up his sabre and keeping his eyes down; while to his back he received verbal comments, reprimands, laughter and even: indecent abuse – from the artisan Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov, from his spouse, Ivanikha, from his worthiness the merchant of the First Guild Puzanov (fishery and steamship company on the Volga) who had been passing here and had risen up together with the rest. The grey little officer in charge was shouting ever more timidly:
‘Move along, gentlemen, move along!’
But the dimmer he grew, the more insistently did the many-legged horses snort there behind the fence: from behind the teeth made of logs – no, no – a shaggy head rose; and if one were to peep over the fence, one would be able to see that it was only some kind of folk who had been driven in from the steppes who had whips in their fists and rifles behind their backs and who were angry about something, angry: impatiently, angrily, silently those ragged fellows danced on their saddles; and their shaggy little horses – they also danced.
It was a detachment of Orenburg Cossacks.
Inside the gloomy building there was a saffron-yellow darkness; here everything was lit by candles; it was impossible to see anything except bodies, bodies and bodies: bent, half-bent, barely bent and not bent at all: those bodies were sitting round, standing round everything that could be sat and stood round; they occupied an amphitheatre of seats that soared aloft; the rostrum was not visible, nor was the voice that bequeathed from the rostrum:
‘Ooo-ooo-ooo.’ There was a hooting in space and through this ‘ooo’ one heard from time to ti
me:
‘Revolution … Evolution … Proletariat … Strike …’ And then again: ‘Strike …’ And again: ‘Strike.’
‘Strike …’ – a voice blurted out; the hooting grew even louder: between two loudly uttered strikes there just barely stole out: ‘Social democracy.’ And again disappeared into the bass-voiced, continuous, dense ooo-ooo …
Obviously what was being said was that in this place and that place and this place there already was a strike; that in this place and that place and this place a strike was being prepared, and so they ought to strike – here and here: to strike right in this very place; and – not to budge!
Escape
Aleksandr Ivanovich was returning home along the empty prospects that ran parallel to the Neva; the light of a court carriage went flying past him; from beneath the vault of the Winter Canal the Neva was revealed to him; there, on the small, curved bridge, he observed the nightly shadow.
Aleksandr Ivanovich was returning to his wretched abode in order to sit in solitude amidst the brown stains and to follow the life of the woodlice in the dampish cracks in the walls. His morning trip outside after the night sooner resembled an escape from the creeping woodlice; Aleksandr Ivanovich’s repeated observations had long ago led him to the thought that the tranquillity of his night quite simply depended on the tranquillity of the day he had spent: only what he had experienced in the streets, in the little restaurants, in the tearooms had he brought home with him of late.
So with what was he returning today?
His experiences trailed after him like a flying, power-laden tail that was invisible to the eye; Aleksandr Ivanovich experienced these experiences in reverse order, letting his conscious retreat into the tail (that is, behind his back): at those moments it always seemed to him that his back had opened and that from that back, as from a door, some giant’s body was preparing to hurl itself into the abyss: this giant’s body was the experience of that day’s twenty-four hours; the experiences began to smoke like a tail.