Petersburg (Penguin Classics)

by Bely, Andrei

  No matter, sir! … Somehow! …

  An uprising, the ruin of Russia … And already they’re preparing: they’ve made an attempt … Some school-leaver or other with eyes and a little moustache bursts into an old, respected aristocratic house …

  And then – the gases, the gases!

  Here he took a pill.

  A spring that is overloaded with weights ceases to be resilient; to resiliency there is a limit; to the human will there is also a limit; even an iron will melts; in old age the human brain grows watery. Today frost falls – and the firm, snowy heap is sprinkled with a luminescent sparkling; and sculpts from the frosty snowflakes a gleaming human bust.

  The thaw comes rustling – the heap turns brown, is eaten away: it goes all flabby and slimy; and – slumps down.

  Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov had frozen in his childhood: frozen and struck root; beneath the frosty night of the capital city his gleaming bust looked sterner, stronger, more terrible – luminescent, sparkling, rising above the northern night above all until that dampish wind that had felled his friend, and which in recent times had flamed into a hurricane.

  Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov rose up to the hurricane; afterwards, too …

  Solitary, long and proud did Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov stand beneath the flaming muzzle of the hurricane – luminescent, frozen, strong; but a limit is set to all things: even platinum melts.

  In one night Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov grew round-shouldered; in one night he collapsed and hung his great head; he too, resilient as a spring, drooped; and formerly? Only recently on the uncreased profile, challengingly thrown under the heavens towards the disasters, the red tongues of flame had quivered, that might … set light … to Russia!

  But only a night passed.

  And against the fiery background of the burning Russian Empire, instead of the strong, gold-uniformed man of state there was – a haemorrhoidal old man standing with his jerkily breathing, hairy chest exposed – unshaven, uncombed, perspiring – in a robe with tassels – he could not, of course, steer the passage (over potholes, bumps, ruts) of our tottering wheel of state! …

  Fortune had betrayed him.

  And of course – it was not the events of his personal life, not that out-and-out scoundrel, his son, and not the fear of falling to a bomb, as a simple fighter in the field falls, not the arrival there of some Anna Petrovna or other, a person of whom he knew little, and who had succeeded in no walk of life whatsoever – not the arrival there of Anna Petrovna (in a darned black dress and with a reticule), and above all not a red rag that had turned the wearer of flashing diamond insignia into a plain melted heap.

  No – it was time …

  Have you seen men of state, who are falling into childhood but are none the less eminent – old men who for half a century have warded off so many blows – white-curled (but more often bald) leaders who have been hardened in the iron of battle?

  I have seen them.

  In assemblies, at meetings, at congresses they have clambered up to the rostra in their snow-white starched linen and gleaming tailcoats with padded shoulders; round-shouldered old men with drooping jaws, with false teeth, toothless –

  – I have seen them –

  – they have continued, out of habit, to strike the hearts of others while on the rostrum keeping their self-possession.

  And I have seen them at home.

  Hurling painful, obtuse witticisms into my ear in a whisper, with weak-minded commotion, in the company of their hangers-on, they trailed into their studies and boasted slaveringly about a little shelf of collected works, bound in morocco leather, which I too once read now and then, and with which they regaled both me and themselves.

  I feel sad!

  At exactly ten o’clock the doorbell rang: it was not Semyonych who opened the door; someone came in and passed through – into Nikolai Apollonovich’s room; he sat there, and left a note there.

  I Know What I am Doing

  At exactly ten o’clock Apollon Apollonovich had his coffee in the dining-room.

  He usually ran, as we know, into the dining-room – icy, stern, shaven, spreading a scent of eau-de-Cologne and proportioning coffee with chronometer; today, however, scratching the floor with his slippers, he came trailing in for his coffee in his dressing-gown: unscented, unshaven.

  From half-past eight until ten o’clock in the morning he sat sequestered.

  He did not look at his correspondence, did not respond to the greetings of the servants, as he customarily did; and when the bulldog’s slavering muzzle placed itself on his knees, his rhythmically mumbling mouth –

  He calls for me, my Delvig dear,

  Companion of my lively youth,

  Companion of my mournful youth –

  – his rhythmically mumbling mouth merely choked on the coffee:

  ‘Er … listen: take the dog away, will you …’

  Tweaking and crumbling a French croissant, he stared at the black grounds of coffee with eyes that were turning to stone.

  At half past eleven, Apollon Apollonovich, as though remembering something, began to fuss and fidget; his eyes darted restlessly, in a manner reminiscent of a grey mouse; he leapt up – and with tiny footsteps, trembling, quickened his pace towards the room that was his study, revealing the half-fastened long johns beneath the open skirts of his dressing-gown.

  Soon the lackey looked into his study in order to remind him that the horses were ready; looked in – and stopped on the threshold as though rooted to the spot.

  With amazement he watched as Apollon Apollonovich wheeled a heavy bookshelf ladder from shelf to shelf over the velvet rugs that were there strewn everywhere – moaning, groaning, stumbling, perspiring – and climbing up the ladder, clambering his way to the top, at risk to his own life, testing the dust on the volumes with his finger; catching sight of the lackey, Apollon Apollonovich chewed his lips disdainfully, and made no reply when reminded that it was time for him to leave.

  Knocking a binding against a shelf, he asked for some rags.

  Two lackeys brought him the rags; they had to be delivered to him on an upraised floor-brush (he would not allow anyone to go up to where he was, and would not come down himself); the two lackeys each took a stearin candle; the two lackeys stood on either side of the ladder with upwards-stretched, rigid arms.

  ‘Raise the light, will you … No, not like that … And not like that … Er, yes – higher: a bit higher …’

  By this time ragged clouds had billowed up from behind the buildings on the other side of the Neva, their gloomy, felt-like billows came to the attack; the wind beat against the panes; semitwilight reigned in the greenish, frowning room; the wind howled; and higher, higher stretched two stearin candles on either side of the ladder, receding towards the ceiling; there, from a cloud of dust, from the very ceiling itself swirled the mouse-coloured skirts and the crimsonish tassels dangled.

  ‘Your ex’cy!

  ‘Is this any task for you? …

  ‘You are pleased to trouble yourself …

  ‘My goodness … Whoever heard of such a thing …’

  Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov, real privy councillor, could not hear what they were saying at all from the cloud of dust: what did he care! Forgetting everything, he was wiping the spines with a rag, banging the volumes violently on the rungs of the ladder; and – at last burst out sneezing:

  ‘Dust, dust, dust …

  ‘Look at it … look at it! …

  ‘Well, now I shall wipe it … with the rag: like that, sir, like that, sir, like that, sir …

  ‘Very good, sir! …’

  And hurled himself at the dust with the dirty rag in his hand.

  The telephone rang worriedly: that was the Institution calling; but the telephone’s worried ring received as reply from the yellow house:

  ‘His excellency? … Yes … He is having his coffee … We will tell him … Yes … The horses are ready …’

  And the telephone rang
a second time; and the second time the telephone rang the answer came a second time:

  ‘Yes … yes … He’s still at table … Yes, we have told him … We will tell him … Yes … The horses are ready …’

  To the third, now indignant ring of the telephone they replied:

  ‘On no account, sir!

  ‘His honour is busy arranging the books …

  ‘The horses?

  ‘They are ready …’

  The horses, having waited, went back to the stable; the coachman spat: to curse he did not dare …

  ‘I shall give them a good wipe!’

  ‘Ai, ai, ai! … Will you look at his honour!’

  ‘Ah-choo!’

  And the trembling yellow hands, armed with volumes, hammered against the shelf.

  In the vestibule the doorbell began to tinkle: it tinkled sporadically; silence spoke between the two jolts of tinkling; like a memory – a memory of something forgotten, familiar – this silence flew through the space of the lacquered room; and – entered the study without being asked; here was something old, old; and – it was coming up the staircase.

  An ear protruded from the dust, a head turned:

  ‘Do you hear? … Listen …’

  Who could that be?

  It might turn out to be: Nikolai Apollonovich, that most dreadful scoundrel, profligate and liar; it might turn out to be: Hermann Hermannovich, bringing papers; or Kotoshi-Kotoshinsky; or, perhaps, Count Nolde; it might even, as a matter of fact, turn out to be – em-em-em – Anna Petrovna …

  There was a jingling.

  ‘Don’t you hear it?’

  ‘Your excellency, of course we hear it: I expect someone is opening up …’

  Only now did the lackeys respond to the tinkling; rigid as stone, they still continued to shine their candles.

  Only Semyonych, who was wandering about the corridor (always muttering, always miserable), enumerating out of boredom the directions in the wardrobe that contained the accoutrements of the barin’s toilet: ‘North-East: black ties and white ties … Collars, cuffs – East … Watches – North’ – only Semyonych, who was wandering about the corridor (always muttering, always miserable), only he pricked up his ears, became alarmed, cocked his ear in the direction of the tinkling sound; and pattered off to the study.

  Thus does a faithful battle horse respond to the sound of the horn:

  ‘I take the liberty of observing: someone is ringing …’

  The lackeys did not respond.

  Each held out his candle – to the ceiling; from the very ceiling itself, from the top of the ladder, a bare head peeped forth surrounded by clouds of dust; a cracked, agitated voice responded:

  ‘Yes! I heard it too.’

  Apollon Apollonovich, tearing himself away from a fat, bound volume – he alone responded:

  ‘Yes, yes, yes …’

  ‘You know …’

  ‘Someone is ringing … the doorbell …’

  Here they both seemed to sense something unutterable but comprehensible, for they both – started: ‘Be quick – run – hurry! …’

  ‘It’s the barynya …’

  ‘It’s Anna Petrovna!’

  Be quick, run, hurry: there’s the tinkling again!

  Here the lackeys put down their candles and came pattering out into the dark corridor (Semyonych pattered there first). From the very ceiling itself, in the greenish light of the Petersburg morning, Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov – a black, mouse-like heap – darted his eyes uneasily; beginning to sigh, somehow he began to crawl down, groaning, leaning his hairy chest, his shoulder and his stubbly chin against the rungs of the ladder; crawled down – and then he set off at a quick-tapping pace in the direction of the staircase with a dirty dust rag in his hand and the skirts of his robe wide open, flapping in the air like a fantastic flight of birds. Now he stumbled, now he got up again, began to breathe heavily and felt his pulse with his finger.

  While up the staircase came a gentleman with downy side-whiskers, in a tightly-buttoned uniform with a drawn-in waist, with dazzlingly white cuffs, with the star of Anna on his breast, being reverentially escorted by Semyonych; on a small tray that barely trembled in the old man’s hands lay a shiny visiting card with a nobleman’s crown.

  The skirts of his robe closed up now, Apollon Apollonovich fussily peered out from behind the statue of Niobe at the august, downy old man.

  He truly did resemble a mouse.

  You Will, Like a Madman

  Petersburg is a dream.

  If you have visited Petersburg in one of your dreams, you will doubtless know the heavy entrance porch: there are oak doors with mirror-like panes of glass; the passers-by see these panes; but behind these panes they have never been.

  A heavy-headed copper mace shone soundlessly from behind the mirror of those panes.

  There is a sloping, octogenarian shoulder: it has been dreamt about for years by the casual passers-by, for whom everything is a dream and who are a dream; on to this octogenarian old man’s shoulder falls a dark tricorne; the octogenarian doorman gleams brightly in there in his gold braid, resembling an employee from a funeral train office in the discharge of his duties.

  Thus it is always.

  The heavy copper-headed mace rests peacefully on the octogenarian doorman’s shoulder; and, crowned in his tricorne, the doorman falls asleep for years over the Stock Exchange Gazette. Then the doorman gets up and opens the door wide. Whether it is afternoon, morning or evening when you pass that oak door – afternoon, morning or evening you will see the copper mace; you will see the gold braid; you will see – the dark tricorne.

  With amazement you will stop before this vision. You saw the same thing the last time you came here. Five years have now passed: events have gone turbulently by in the distance; China has awoken; and Port Arthur has fallen; the Amur region of our country is being flooded by yellow-faced people; the legends of the iron horsemen of Genghis Khan have come to life.

  But the vision of the years of old is unaltering, continuous: an octogenarian shoulder, a tricorne, gold braid, a beard.

  A moment – and if the white beard should stir into motion behind the glass, if the enormous mace should sway, if the silvery gold braid should dazzlingly flash like the poisonous streams that rush from the gutters, threatening the resident of the basement with cholera and typhus, – if all that should be so, and the old years change, you will, like a madman, whirl about the Petersburg prospects.

  The poisonous stream from a gutter will wash you in the dank cold of October.

  If there, behind the mirror-like entrance porch, the heavy-headed mace swiftly flashed, then doubtless, doubtless cholera and typhus would not float around here: China would not be in tumult; and Port Arthur would not have fallen; the Amur region of our country would not be flooded by slant-eyed people; the horsemen of Genghis Khan would not have risen up from their graves many centuries old.

  But listen, listen closely: the thud of hooves … The thud of hooves from the steppes beyond the Urals. The thud of hooves is approaching.

  It is the iron horsemen.

  Freezing for years above the entrance porch of the black-grey, many-columned house, the porch’s caryatid still hangs: a thick-bearded, stone colossus.

  With a sad, thousand-year-old smile, with the dark emptiness of eyes that penetrate the day he has hung for years: has hung agonizingly; for a hundred years the cornice of the balcony ledge has been falling on to the back of the bearded man’s neck and on to the elbows of his stone arms. Hewn from the stone with a vine leaf and bunches of stone grapes, his loins have grown. Firmly against the wall his black-hoofed, goat-like legs have pressed.

  Old, bearded man of stone!

  Many years he has smiled above the noise of the street, for many years has raised himself a little above the summers, the winters, the springs – with the rounded curlicues of ornamental moulding. Summer, autumn, winter: again – summer and autumn; he is the same; and in summer he is porous; in winter
, covered in ice, he bled pieces of ice; in the spring from those pieces of ice and those icicles’ drops flowed. But he is the same: the years pass him by.

  Time itself comes up to the caryatid’s waist.

  Out of hard times, as above the line of time, he has bent above the straight arrow of the prospect. A crow has settled on his beard: has cawed monotonously at the prospect; this slippery, wet prospect gives off a metallic sheen; in these wet flagstones, so cheerlessly illumined by the October day, are reflected: the greenish swarm of clouds, the greenish faces of the passers-by, the silvery streams that flow from the babbling gutters.

  The bearded man of stone, raised above the whirlwind of events, has supported the entrance porch of the Institution for days, weeks and years.

  What a day!

  From morning on the droplets began to beat, to chirr, to whisper; from the seashore a grey, misty felt pressed; in pairs the clerks walked in; the doorman in the tricorne opened the door for them; they hung their hats and damp garments on hooks and ran up the stairs of red cloth, ran through the white marble vestibule, raised their eyes to the minister’s portrait; and walked through the unheated halls – to their cold desks. But the clerks did not write: there was nothing to write; no paper was brought from the director’s office; there was no one in the office; the logs crackled in the fireplace.

  Above the stern, oak desk no bald head tensed the veins at its temples; it did not look sullenly from where in the fireplace cornflowers of coal gas flowed over an incandescent heap of crackling will-o-the-wisps: in that solitary room idly in the fireplace cornflowers of coal gas continued to flow over an incandescent heap of crackling will-o-the-wisps; they exploded, tore themselves free and burst – red cockerels’ combs, flying swiftly away up the smoky chimney, in order to merge above the rooftops with the fumes and the poisoned soot and to hang permanently above the rooftops in a suffocating, corroding gloom. There was no one in the office.