Petersburg (Penguin Classics)

by Bely, Andrei

  ‘Who is that?’

  ‘Someone who annihilates us irrevocably.’

  ‘A police spy?’

  ‘Never …’

  The door of the restaurant slammed.

  The tall, many-headed street lamps, tormented by the winds, shimmered with strange lights, expanding into the long Petersburg night; the black, black pedestrians flowed forth from the darkness; once again the bowler hat ran beside him along the wall.

  ‘Well, and if I refuse the assignment?’

  ‘I will arrest you …’

  ‘You? Arrest me?’

  ‘Do not forget that I …’

  ‘That you’re a conspirator?’

  ‘I am an employee of the secret police; as an employee of the secret police I will arrest you …’

  The wind of the Neva was whistling in the telegraph wires and lamenting in the gateways; icy shreds of clouds half torn to tatters were visible; and it seemed that in a moment or two from the most ragged clouds bands of busy rain would break loose – to chirr, lisp and beat over the stone paving with drops, curling their cold bubbles on the gurgling puddles.

  ‘What would the Party say to you?’

  ‘The Party would support me: using my position in the secret police, I would take revenge on you for the Party …’

  ‘Well, and what if I were to denounce you to the authorities?’

  ‘Try it …’

  Then, from the most ragged cloud, bands of busy rain began to fall – to chirr, lisp and beat over the stone paving with drops, curling their cold bubbles on the gurgling puddles.

  ‘No, Nikolai Apollonovich, I beg you – let us put joking to one side: because I am very, very serious; and I must observe: your doubt and indecisiveness mortify me; you should have weighed up all the chances beforehand … You could have said no (for goodness’ sake, you’ve had two months). You did not bother to do that at the right time; you have one path; and you must choose what lies ahead of you – either arrest, suicide or murder. I hope that now you understand me? … Good-bye …’

  The little bowler hat went trotting off in the direction of the Seventeenth Line, while the overcoat set off towards the bridge.

  Petersburg, Petersburg!

  Falling like fog, you have pursued me, too, with idle cerebral play: you are a cruel-hearted tormentor: but you are an unquiet ghost: for years you have attacked me; I too ran through your dreadful prospects, in order to take a flying leap on to this gleaming bridge …

  Oh, great bridge, shining with electricity! Oh, green waters, seething with bacilli! I remember a certain fateful moment; over your damp railings I too leant on a September night: a moment – and my body would have flown into the mists.

  On the great cast-iron bridge Nikolai Apollonovich turned round; behind him he saw nothing, no one: above the damp, damp railings, above the greenish water that seethed with bacilli he was whiningly seized by nothing but the cold Neva wind; here, on this very spot, two and a half months before, Nikolai Apollonovich had given his terrible promise; that same waxen face, its lips protruding, had stretched forward out of a grey overcoat above the damp railings; above the Neva he stood, staring dully at the greenness – or rather: letting his gaze fly over to where the banks cowered; and then rather quickly began to mince away, tripping clumsily over the skirts of his overcoat.

  Some kind of phosphorescent stain, both misty and frenzied, rushed across the sky; the Neva distances became misted by a phosphorescent sheen; and this made the soundlessly flying surfaces begin to gleam greenly, reflecting now here, now there a spark of gold. On the other side of the Neva now rose the massive buildings of the islands, casting into the fog eyes that had begun to burn. Higher up, some kind of obscure outlines frenziedly stretched out ragged hands; swarm upon swarm they ascended.

  The embankment was empty.

  From time to time the black shadow of a policeman walked past; the square was empty; on the right the Senate and the Synod raised their storeys. The rock, too, loomed: with a kind of particular curiosity Nikolai Apollonovich goggled at the massive outline of the Horseman. Earlier, when he had passed here with Pavel Yakovlevich, it had seemed to Ableukhov that the Horseman was not there (the shadow had concealed him); but now a rippling semi-shadow covered the Horseman’s face; and the metal of his face smiled ambiguously.

  Suddenly the storm clouds were torn apart, and the clouds began to smoke like a green puff of melted bronze beneath the moon … For a moment everything flared up: waters, roofs, granite; the Horseman’s face, the bronze laurel wreath flared; many thousands’ worth of metal hung down from the lustreless green shoulders of the bronze-headed colossus; the cast face and the wreath that was green with time and the many hundred-pood-weighted arm that was imperiously extended straight in Nikolai Apollonovich’s direction began to gleam phosphorescently; in the bronze hollows of the eyes bronze thoughts showed greenly; and it seemed: that the arm was about to move (the heavy folds of the cloak would ring against the elbow), the metal hooves would fall on the rock with a loud crash, and a voice that would shatter the granite would resound over all Petersburg:

  ‘Yes, yes, yes …

  ‘It is I …

  ‘I annihilate irrevocably.’

  For an instant everything was suddenly bathed in light for Nikolai Apollonovich; yes – now he understood what sort of a colossus it was that had sat there at the table in the Vasily Island drinking house (had he too been visited by the vision?); as he had walked to that door, this very face had appeared coming towards him out of the corner, illumined by the street lamp; and now this green arm threatened him. For an instant everything became clear to Ableukhov: his fate was bathed in light: yes – he must; and yes – he was doomed.

  But the storm clouds cut into the moon; the strands of witches’ tresses flew over the sky.

  Roaring with laughter, Nikolai Apollonovich fled from the Bronze Horseman:

  ‘Yes, yes, yes …

  ‘I know, I know …

  ‘I am lost irrevocably …’

  In the empty street a shaft of light: it was a court carriage carrying bright red lamps that looked like bloodshot eyes; the ghostly outline of a lackey’s three-cornered hat and the outline of the wings of his overcoat flew with the light out of fog into fog.

  Griffins

  And the prospects stretched – over there, over there: the prospects stretched; the gloomy pedestrian did not hurry his step: the gloomy pedestrian looked painfully around him: these infinities of buildings! The gloomy pedestrian was Nikolai Apollonovich.

  … Without losing a moment, he must at once undertake – but what was he to undertake? After all, was it not he, was it not he who had so lavishly sown the seeds of the theory concerning the absurdity of all forms of pity? Had he not, in front of that silent little group, once expressed his opinions – always about one and the same thing: about his suppressed revulsion for the barin, for the barin’s old ears, for all his Tartardom and aristocratic haughtiness, including … including that birdlike, outstretched neck … with a subcutaneous vein.

  At last he hired some tardy Vanka and his cab: past him the four-storeyed buildings moved and flew.

  The Admiralty presented its eight-columned flank: turned pink and vanished; from the other side, across the Neva, between white borders of plaster the walls of an old building threw their bright carrot colour; a black-and-white sentry booth stood as it always did, on the left; an old Pavlovsk grenadier was striding back and forth in a grey overcoat there; he had his sharp sparkling bayonet thrown over his shoulder.

  Evenly, slowly, listlessly, Vanka trotted past the Pavlovsk grenadier: evenly, slowly, listlessly, Nikolai Apollonovich, too, bumped past the Pavlovsk grenadier. The bright morning, ablaze with the sparks of the Neva, had turned all the water over there into an abyss of pure gold; and into the abyss the funnel of a small whistling steamboat disappeared at full tilt; he saw that the dried-up little figure on the pavement was quickening his tardy pace, somehow bobbing along over the paving-stones
– that dried-up little figure who … in whom … whom he recognized: it was Apollon Apollonovich. Nikolai Apollonovich wanted to detain the cab driver in order to give the little figure enough time to move away, in order to … it was already too late: the old, shaven head turned towards the cab driver, gave a shake, and turned away. Nikolai Apollonovich, so as not to be recognized, turned his back towards the tardy pedestrian: he hid his nose in his beaver; all that could be seen was a collar and a peaked cap; already the yellow block of a house had risen before him into the fog.

  Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov, having seen the adolescent girl to her home, was now hurrying towards the doorway of the yellow house; past him, too, the Admiralty had just moved its eight-columned flank; the black-and-white striped booth was on the left where it usually was; now he was walking along the embankment, contemplating there, on the Neva, the abyss of pure gold into which the funnel of a small whistling steamboat had just flown at full tilt.

  At this point Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov heard behind his back the thunder of the carriage; turned his old, shaven head towards the carriage; and when the cab drew level with the senator, the senator saw: there, writhing on the seat – an old-looking and misshapen young man, wrapped up in his overcoat in a most unpleasant manner; and when this young man looked at the senator, his nose hidden in his overcoat (all that could be seen were his eyes and peaked cap), the senator’s head jerked away towards the wall so swiftly that his top hat struck against the stone fruit of the black house ledge (Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov methodically readjusted his top hat), and for a moment Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov stared into the watery depths: into the emerald-red abyss.

  Here it seemed to him that the eyes of the unpleasant young man, having caught sight of him, began in the twinkling of an eye to dilate, dilate, dilate: in the twinkling of an eye they unpleasantly dilated and stopped in a gaze full of horror. In horror did Apollon Apollonovich stop before the horror: this gaze pursued Apollon Apollonovich more and more often; this was the gaze with which his subordinates looked at him, this was the gaze with which the passing mongrel breed looked at him: and the student, and the shaggy Manchurian hat; yes, yes, yes: they looked with that same gaze and dilated with that same glitter; while already the cab, overtaking him, was bouncing tiresomely over the stones; and the number on the number-plate fleeted by: 1905; and in utter fright, Apollon Apollonovich stared into the crimson, many-chimneyed distance; and Vasily Island stared tormentingly, offensively, brazenly at the senator.

  Nikolai Apollonovich jumped out of the carriage, tripping clumsily on the skirts of his overcoat, looking old and bad-tempered, ran as quickly as he could to the entrance porch of the yellow house, waddling like a duck and flapping the wings of his overcoat in the air against the backdrop of the bright crimson dawn; Ableukhov stood by the porch; Ableukhov rang; and, as many times before (and precisely so it was today) the voice of the nightwatchman, Nikolaich, rushed at him from somewhere in the distance:

  ‘Good day to you, Nikolai Apollonovich, sir! … Very grateful to you sir … A little on the late side, sir!’

  And, as many times before, precisely so today, a fifteen-copeck piece fell into the hand of Nikolaich, the nightwatchman.

  Nikolai Apollonovich tugged violently at the bell-pull: oh, if only Semyonych in there would open the door quickly, for otherwise – that dried-up little figure would appear out of the fog (why was he not in a carriage?); and on either side of the massive house steps he saw the gaping jaws of a griffin, rosy with the dawn, and holding in its claws the rings for the flagpoles on which were hoisted the red white and blue flag that flapped its tricoloured cloth above the Neva on certain days of the calendar; above the griffins the Ableukhov coat of arms, too, was sculpted in the stone; this coat of arms portrayed a long-plumed knight amidst rococo scrolls, gored by a unicorn; a wild thought, like a fish darting for a moment to the surface of the waters, passed through Nikolai Apollonovich’s head: Apollon Apollonovich, who spent his life beyond the threshold of that branded door, was the knight who was being gored; and this thought was followed by another, which darted altogether obscurely, without rising to the surface (thus from afar does a fish show dimly): the old family coat of arms referred to all the Ableukhovs; he too, Nikolai Apollonovich, was being gored – but gored by whom?

  The whole of that mental galimatias went fleeting through his soul in one tenth of a second: and now there, now there, on the pavement – in the fog – he saw that dried-up little figure hurrying up to the house: that dried-up little figure was approaching swiftly, – that dried-up little figure, in whom … whom … who from a distance presented, he thought, the aspect of a puny, prematurely born infant: with a deeply yellow face that was emaciated and haemorrhoidal, Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov, his parent, looked like death in a top hat; Nikolai Apollonovich – sometimes crazy thoughts occur to one – imagined the little figure of Apollon Apollonovich in the moment of fulfilling conjugal relations with his mother, Anna Petrovna: and Nikolai Apollonovich felt with new intensity a familiar sense of nausea (after all, in one of those moments he had been conceived).

  He was seized by indignation: no, let it happen, what was going to happen!

  Meanwhile the little figure was drawing closer. Nikolai Apollonovich perceived to his shame that the access of his fury, artificially warmed, was decidedly fading: he was seized by the familiar sense of confusion, and …

  And an unpleasant spectacle presented itself to Apollon Apollonovich’s gaze: Nikolai Apollonovich, looking old and somehow very bad-tempered, with a deeply yellow face, with eyelids red and inflamed, with lip protruding – Nikolai Apollonovich leapt swiftly down the front steps and, waddling like a duck, ran guiltily towards his parent, with a blinking, evasive gaze, and a perfumed hand stretched forth from under the fur of his overcoat:

  ‘Good morning, Papa …’

  Silence.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting to meet you – I’ve been at the Tsukatovs.’

  Apollon Apollonovich thought that this apparently shy young man was – a scoundrelly young man; but Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov was embarrassed by this thought, especially in the presence of his son; and, having become embarrassed, Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov shyly muttered:

  ‘I see, sir, I see: good morning, Kolenka … Well, fancy meeting you here … Eh? Yes, yes, yes …’

  And as many times before, precisely so today, at this point the voice of Nikolaich the nightwatchman rang out:

  ‘Good day to you, your excellency, sir!’

  On the front entrance, on both sides of the door, the griffins opened wide their beaklike jaws; the long-plumed stone knight in rococo scrolls and with chest torn asunder was being gored by a unicorn: the more dazzlingly and ethereally the rosy-fingered portents of day flew away across the sky, the more distinctly did all the projections of the buildings loom heavy; the more crimson, more purple was the jaw-gaping griffin.

  The doors burst open; the Ableukhovs were embraced by the familiar smell of their chambers; the lackey’s vein-covered fingers were thrust through the opening of the door: grey-haired Semyonych, the sleep still in his eyes, in a hurriedly thrown-on jacket seized by the collar in a seventy year-old hand, screwed up his eyes in the unendurable Neva glitter as he let the masters in.

  The Ableukhovs flew through the opening of the door almost side by side.

  Red as Fire

  They both knew that a talk was imminent; this talk had been maturing throughout long years of silence; Apollon Apollonovich, handing his top hat, coat and gloves to the lackey, got somehow entangled with his galoshes; the poor, poor senator: how could he have known that Nikolai Apollonovich had that same errand with him? In equal measure, Nikolai Apollonovich could not have guessed that the whole story of the red domino was known to his parent in its entirety. Both at that moment were breathing in the smells of the familiar chambers; on to the vein-covered hand of the lackey fell a sumptuous beaver, shining silver; the overcoat fell down somehow sleepily – but now
Nikolai Apollonovich stood before his father’s eyes in his domino cape. At the sight of this domino, through Apollon Apollonovich’s mind, some lines long ago committed to memory began to whirl:

  Colours of a fiery hue

  On my palm I throw,

  That amidst the light’s abyss

  Red as fire he’ll show.6

  With a hand just as covered in veins as Semyonych’s (only properly washed), he felt his side-whiskers:

  ‘Er … er … A red domino? … Tell me what it’s about, please! …’

  ‘I was at a fancy-dress ball …’

  ‘Indeed … Kolenka … Indeed, sir …’

  Apollon Apollonovich stood before Kolenka with a kind of bitter irony, half mumbling, half chewing his lips; wretchedly, with irony, the skin on his forehead gathered into tiny wrinkles; wretchedly did it tauten on his skull. An imminent accounting could be sensed: one could sense that the fruit that had grown on the tree of their lives had now ripened; in a moment or two it would fall: it fell, and … – suddenly:

  Apollon Apollonovich dropped a pencil (by the steps of the velvet staircase); Nikolai Apollonovich, following ancient habit, deferentially rushed to pick it up; Apollon Apollonovich, in his turn, rushed to forestall his son’s complaisance, but stumbled, falling to his heels and touching the stairs with his hands; quickly his bald head flew downwards and forwards; ending up unexpectedly under the fingers of his son, who had stretched out his hands: Nikolai Apollonovich saw before him for an instant his father’s yellow, vein-covered neck, which looked like a crayfish’s tail (an artery throbbed at one side); Nikolai Apollonovich failed to control his clumsy movements, and unexpectedly touched the neck; the neck’s warm pulsation frightened him, and he jerked his hand away, but jerked it away too late: under the touch of his cold hand (which was always slightly sweaty) Apollon Apollonovich turned and saw – that same gaze; the senator’s head jerked momentarily in a tic, the skin gathered wretchedly in wrinkles above his skull and his ears twitched slightly. In his domino Nikolai Apollonovich looked as though he were entirely covered in flame; and the senator, like an over-agile Japanese who had studied the techniques of ju-jitsu, threw himself to one side, and suddenly straightened up on his crunching knees – up, up and to the side …