Petersburg (33 page)

The Tsukatovs were not, strictly speaking, giving a ball: it was at most only a children’s party in which grown-ups wanted to take part; to be sure, there was a rumour that maskers would be coming to the party; the prospect of their appearance surprised Lyubov’ Alekseyevna, it had to be said; after all, it was not Christmas; but such, evidently, were the traditions of her charming husband that for the sake of dancing and children’s laughter he was prepared to break all the statutes of the calendar; her charming husband, the possessor of two silver side-whiskers, was even to this day called Coco.
In this dancing household he was, it goes without saying, Nikolai Petrovich, the household’s head and the father of two pretty daughters of eighteen and fifteen respectively.

These charming fair-haired creatures were dressed in gauzy gowns and silver dancing shoes.
Ever since eight o’clock they had been waving their feathery fans at their father, at the housekeeper, at the chambermaid, and even … at the venerable
zemstvo
official
¹⁰
of mastodon-like proportions (a relative of Coco’s) who was staying in the house.
At last the long-awaited timid ring was heard; the door of the brightly lit ballroom flew open; and tightly clad in his tailcoat, a ballroom pianist, resembling a black, long-legged bird, rubbing his hands, very nearly tripped over a passing waiter (who had been summoned to this glittering house on the occasion of the ball); in the waiter’s hands a cardboard sheet completely covered with cotillion trinkets began to rattle, began to tremble: medals,
ribbons and little bells.
The modest ballroom pianist spread out a row of sheet music, raised and lowered the wing of the grand piano, carefully blew the dust off the keys and, without visible purpose, he pressed a pedal with his gleaming shoe, putting one in mind of a conscientious engine driver testing the boilers of his locomotive before the train left the station.
Having convinced himself that the instrument was working properly, the modest ballroom pianist gathered up the tails of his coat, sat down on the low piano stool, flung back his whole body, let his fingers fall on the keys, for a moment froze – and a thunderous chord shook the walls: as though a whistle had been sounded, summoning to a long journey.

And now amidst these raptures, as though he were his own man, not anyone else’s, Nikolai Petrovich Tsukatov began to turn round and round with supple movements and, spreading wide the silvery lace of his side-whiskers with his fingers, his bald patch and smoothly shaven chin gleaming, rushed from couple to couple, dropping an innocent joke to a blue-clad young man, firmly poking two fingers at a firm-chested moustache-wearer, saying loudly into the ear of a more respectable man: ‘Oh, let them enjoy themselves: they tell me I have danced my life away; but you know, this innocent enjoyment saved me in my time from many of the sins of youth: from wine, women and cards.’ And amidst these raptures, as though he were not his own man, but someone else’s, somehow idly, biting the thick felt of his little yellow beard, the
zemstvo
official clumsily stamped, trod on the ladies’ trains, loitered lonely amidst the couples, and then went off to his room.

He Was Dancing to a Close

As usual, from time to time drawing-room visitors made their way through the ballroom – indulgently they advanced into the ballroom along the walls; insolent fans splashed their fronts, they were lashed by beaded skirts, their faces were dusted clean by a hot wind of hurtling couples; but they made their way noiselessly along the walls.

A rather fat man whose face was unpleasantly pitted with smallpox scars was the first to traverse this hall; the lapels of his frock-coat
stuck out impossibly, because he had pulled his frock-coat tight over his belly, which was of respectable proportions; he was the editor of a conservative newspaper, the liberal son of a priest.
¹¹
In the drawing-room he kissed the plump hand of Lyubov’ Alekseyevna, a lady of forty-five with a puffy face that fell on to her corset-supported bosom in a double chin.
If one looked out of the ballroom through the two intermediate rooms, one could observe from afar his standing sojourn in the drawing-room.
There in the distance burned the azure globe of an electric chandelier; there in the shimmering azure light, rather heavily, stood the editor of the conservative newspaper on his elephant legs, showing mistily through suspended flocks of bluish tobacco smoke.

And as soon as Lyubov’ Alekseyevna asked him some innocent question, the enormously fat editor turned it into a question of great significance:

‘No need to tell me – no, madam!
Well, you see, they think like that because they’re all idiots.
I can undertake to prove it with exactitude.’

‘But after all, my dear man, Coco …’

‘It’s all a Jewish Freemason swindle, madam: the organization, the centralization …’

‘All the same, there are very nice well-bred people among them and people who are, moreover, from our social circle,’ the hostess interjected timidly.

‘Yes, but our social circle doesn’t know where sedition gets its power.’

‘And in your opinion?’

‘The power of sedition is in Charleston …’
¹²

‘Why in Charleston?’

‘Because that is where the head of all sedition lives.’

‘Who is this head?’

‘The antipope …’ the editor bellowed.

‘And what is the antipope?’

‘Ah well, one can see you haven’t read anything.’

‘Oh, how interesting all this is: tell me, please.’

Thus did Lyubov’ Alekseyevna exclaim with surprise, inviting the pockmarked editor to sink into a soft armchair; and as he sank, he said:

‘Yes, yes, my good friends!’

From afar, from the drawing-room, through the two intermediate rooms they could see the glittering and shimmering that were coming out of the open door of the ballroom.
There resounded a thunderous:

‘R
rreculez
!
…’

‘
Balancez, vos dames
!
…’

And again.

‘R
rreculez
!
…’

Nikolai Petrovich Tsukatov had danced his life away; now Nikolai Petrovich was dancing his life to a close; doing so lightly, inoffensively, without vulgarity; not a single small cloud darkened his soul; his soul was pure and innocent, like this bald patch that burned like the sun or like this smoothly shaven chin between side-whiskers, like the moon looking out through the clouds.

Everything went dancingly for him.

He had begun to dance when he was a small boy; had danced better than any of the others; and he had been invited to people’s homes as an experienced dancer; towards the end of his course at the high school acquaintances had danced into his life; towards the end of his days at the Law Faculty a circle of influential patrons had danced itself of its own accord out of an enormous circle of acquaintances; and Nikolai Petrovich Tsukatov set about dancing a career in the civil service.
By that time he had danced away an estate; having danced away the estate, with frivolous simple-heartedness he started going to balls; and from those balls brought to himself with remarkable ease his companion in life, Lyubov’ Alekseyevna: this completely accidental companion turned out to have an enormous dowry: and ever since then Nikolai Petrovich had danced in his own home; children were danced out; then the children’s education was danced out – it was all danced easily, unpretentiously, joyfully.

Now he was dancing himself to a close.

The Ball

What is a drawing-room during a merry waltz?
It is merely an appendage to the ballroom and a refuge for mammas.
But the cunning Lyubov’ Alekseyevna, taking advantage of her husband’s
good nature (he had not a single enemy) and her enormous dowry, taking advantage, further, of the fact that their house was profoundly indifferent to everything – everything, that is, apart from dancing, of course – and was therefore a neutral meeting place – taking advantage of all this, the cunning Lyubov’ Alekseyevna, leaving it to her husband to direct the dancing, conceived a desire to direct the meetings of the most varied persons; here meetings took place between: a
zemstvo
official and a civil service official; a publicist and the director of a government department; a demagogue and a Judophobe.
This house had been visited, and even lunched in, by Apollon Apollonovich.

And while Nikolai Petrovich wove the
contredanse
into unexpected figures, in the indifferently cordial drawing-room more than one conjuncture was woven and unwoven.

People danced here, too, in their own way.

This evening, as usual, drawing-room visitors made their way through the ballroom from time to time; the second to do so was a man of truly antediluvian appearance with a sugar-sweet face that was absent-minded to an atrocious degree, with a crease in his frock-coat that had ridden up on his down-covered back, making his unpretentious black half-belt protrude indecently between the tails; he was a professor of statistics; from his chin hung a ragged yellowish beard, and on to his shoulders fell, like thick felt, a mane that had never seen a comb.
One was struck by his lower lip, which looked as though it were falling away from his mouth.

The fact was that in view of mounting events there was in preparation something akin to a
rapprochement
between one of the groups of supporters of, so to speak, if not radical, at any rate thoroughly humane reforms, and the truly patriotic hearts – a
rapprochement
that was not fundamental but rather conditional, temporarily brought about by the rumbling of the avalanche of mass meetings that was descending on everyone.
The supporters of, so to speak, gradual but at any rate thoroughly humane reforms, shaken by the thunder of this terrible avalanche, suddenly in fear began to draw closer to the supporters of the existing norms, but did not make the first move; the liberal professor
¹³
had taken it upon himself, in the name of the common weal, to be the first to step across a threshold which was, so to speak, a fateful one for him.
One should not forget that he was respected by the whole of society, and that the latest protest petition had been signed by him; at the latest banquet his goblet had been raised to greet the spring.

But, as he entered the brightly lit ballroom, the professor lost his composure: the bright lights and shimmerings evidently dazzled him; his lower lip fell away from his mouth in surprise; in a most good-natured manner he contemplated the exultant ballroom, jibbed, faltered, took his unfolded handkerchief out of his pocket in order to remove from his moustache the moisture he had brought in from the street, and blinked at the couples who had fallen quiet for a moment between two figures of the quadrille.

Now he was approaching the drawing-room, and the shimmering light of the azure electric chandelier.

The editor’s voice stopped him on the threshold:

‘Do you understand now, madam, the connection between the war with Japan and the Jews who threaten us with a Mongol invasion and with sedition?
The antics of our Jews and the emergence of the Boxers in China
¹⁴
have a most clear and obvious connection.’

‘I understand, now I understand!’

This was Lyubov’ Alekseyevna exclaiming.
But the professor stopped in alarm: he, at any rate, remained to the marrow of his bones a liberal and a supporter, so to speak, of thoroughly humane reforms; this was the first time he had been to this house, and he had expected to find Apollon Apollonovich here; of him, however, there was apparently no sign: there was only the editor of a conservative newspaper, that same editor who had just, to express it humanely, thrown at the twenty-five years’ enlightened activity of the gatherer of statistical facts a coagulation of the most indecent filth.
And the professor suddenly began to puff and pant, to blink angrily at the editor, began to snort into his ragged beard in a rather ambiguous way, picking up the moisture that hung from his moustache with his bright red lower lip.

But the hostess’s double chin turned first to the professor, then to the editor of the conservative newspaper and, pointing each of them out to the other with her lorgnette, she introduced them to each other, which caused them both to be taken slightly aback, and then each thrust his cold fingers into the hand of the other, pudgy,
sweaty ones into pudgy dry ones, liberal-humane ones into ones that were not humane at all.

The professor grew even more embarrassed; he bowed slightly, snorted ambiguously, sat down in an armchair, sank into it, and began to fidget restlessly there.
As for the newspaper editor, he continued, as though nothing had happened, his conversation with the hostess that had been interrupted.
Ableukhov could have come to the rescue, but … Ableukhov was not there.

Was all this really required of the professor because of a witty conjuncture, a protest petition he had just signed and a goblet that had flown to greet the spring at a banquet?

But the fat man continued:

‘Do you understand, madam, the activity of these Jews and Masons?’

‘I understand, now I understand.’

The liberally grunting and lip-chewing professor could hold out no longer; turning to the hostess, he commented:

‘Allow me, too, madam, to interject a modest remark of my own – a scientific remark: the information being given here has a perfectly clear source of origin.’

But the fat man suddenly interrupted him.

While over there, over there …

Over there the ballroom pianist suddenly and elegantly broke off his musical dance with a thunderous stab in the bass with one hand, while with his other hand he turned a page of music with an expert movement in the twinkling of an eye, and with his hand suspended in the air, his fingers spread expressively between the keyboard and the music, he turned the whole of his body somehow expectantly towards the host, flashing the enamel of his dazzlingly white teeth.