Petersburg (35 page)

All the same, he began to feel his own pulse.
Nikolai Apollonovich had on several occasions recently noticed this gesture of the senatorial fingers, which was made in stealth (the senator’s heart was evidently growing tired of functioning).
Seeing this same gesture now, he felt something that resembled pity; and involuntarily he stretched his red-rustling arms to his father; as if he were
imploring his father not to run away from him gasping in a bout of palpitations of the heart, as if he were imploring his father to forgive him for all his past sins.
But Apollon Apollonovich had continued to feel his pulse with his trembling fingers and was now running away in the throes of palpitations – somewhere over there, somewhere over there …

Suddenly the doorbell rang: the whole room was filled with maskers; a black row of Capuchins burst in, the black Capuchins quickly formed a chain around their red confrère and began to dance some kind of dance around him; their satin skirts fluttered and coiled; the tops of their hoods flew up and fell uproariously back again; but on the chest of each a skull and crossbones was embroidered; and the skulls danced in time.

Then the red domino, defending himself, ran out of the ballroom; the black flock of Capuchins chased after him with loud laughter; thus did they fly along the wide corridor and into the dining-room; all who sat at the table began to bang their plates in welcome.

‘Capuchins, maskers, clowns.’

Flocks of mother-of-pearl pink and heliotrope young ladies leapt up from their seats, and so did hussars, law students, students.
Nikolai Petrovich Tsukatov jumped up on the spot with a goblet of Rhine wine, bellowing out his thunderous
vivat
in honour of the strange company.

And then someone observed:

‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is too much …’

But he was hauled off to dance.

In the ballroom the pianist, arching his spine, had begun to set his fluffed-up quiff of hair dancing over his fingers that raced over the keys, pouring out runs; the treble danced all over the place and the bass sluggishly ground into motion.

And looking with an innocent smile at a black Capuchin who whirled his satin cape with an especially brazen movement, an angel-like creature in a little violet skirt suddenly leaned over the opening of his hood (a mask stared her in the face); and with her hand the creature seized hold of the hump of a striped clown, one of whose legs (it was blue) flew into the air, while the other (it was red) bent down to the parquetry; but the creature was not afraid;
she gathered up her hem, and from thence thrust forth a little silvery dancing shoe.

And off they went – one, two, three …

And after them went the Spanish lasses, the monks and the devils; the harlequins, the pelisses, the fans, the exposed backs, the scarves of silver laminae; above them all, swaying, danced a lanky palm tree.

Only over there, solitary, leaning against the window-sill, between the lowered greenish curtains, Apollon Apollonovich gasped in a paroxysm of his heart trouble, the extent of which not a single person knew.

Pompadour

Angel Peri stood in front of the dim oval mirror that was ever so slightly deflected: everything disappeared down into there and grew dim down there: the ceiling, the walls and the floor; and she herself disappeared down there, into the depth, the greenish dimness; and there, there – out of the fountain of objects and the muslin – lace foam there was now emerging a beautiful woman with luxuriantly fluffed hair and a beauty-spot on her cheek: Madame Pompadour!

Her hair, which curled in ringlets and was only just held together by a ribbon, was grey as snow, and the powder-puff was frozen above the powder-box in such slender little fingers; her tautly drawn-in, pale azure waist bent just so slightly to the left with a black mask in her hand; from her tightly cut corsage, like living pearls, breathing, her breasts showed mistily, while from her tight, rustling sleeves Valenciennes lace surged quietly in airy folds; and everywhere, everywhere around her
décolletage
, below the
décolletage
, surged that lace; beneath her corsage the flounces of the panniered skirt, which looked as though it had risen above the languorous breathing of zephyrs, rocked and played, and it shone with a garland of silver grasses in the form of airy festoons; below that were those same little dancing shoes; and on each of the little shoes a pompon showed silver.
But it was strange: in this attire she seemed suddenly older and less attractive; instead of small rosy lips, she had indecently red ones that pouted, and they spoiled her little
face, those too-heavy lips; and when she looked askance, for a moment there was something witch-like about Madame Pompadour: at that moment she hid the letter in the slit of her corsage.

At this same moment Mavrushka came running into the room holding a staff of light-coloured wood with a gold handle, from which ribbons fluttered: but when Madame Pompadour stretched out her little hand in order to take this staff, what proved to be in her hand was a note from her husband; it said: ‘If you go out this evening, you will never return to my house again.
Sergei Sergeyevich Likhutin.’

That note related not to her, Madame Pompadour, of course, but to Sofya Petrovna Likhutina, and Madame Pompadour smiled at the note contemptuously; she looked fixedly at the mirror, at the depth, the greenish dimness: there far, far away a gentle ripple seemed to rush; suddenly out of that depth and greenish dimness some sort of waxen face seemed to thrust itself into the crimson light of the vermilion lampshade; and she turned round.

Behind her shoulders motionlessly stood her husband, the officer; but again she laughed contemptuously, and raising her panniered skirt slightly by the festoons, she floated smoothly away from him in curtsies; a quietly flowing zephyr carried her away from him, and her crinoline rustled, swaying like a bell in the zephyr’s sweet currents; and when she was in the doorway, she turned to face him, and with her hand, on which a satin mask dangled, she thumbed her nose at the officer, smiling slyly as she did so; then outside the door a peal of laughter resounded and the innocent exclamation:

‘Mavrushka, my coat!’

Then Sergei Sergeich Likhutin, second lieutenant in His Majesty’s Gregorian Regiment, white as death, completely calm, ironically smiling, skipped along after the graceful mask and then, with a click of his spurs, stood deferentially with the fur coat in his hand; with even greater deference did he throw the coat about her shoulders, opened wide the door and courteously pointed outside – into the dark-coloured dark; and when, rustling, she passed into that darkness, turning up her little face at such a humble service, the humble servant, with a click of his spurs, made her another low bow.
The dark-coloured darkness surged over her – surged from all sides: it
flooded her rustling outlines; for a long time something went on rustling and rustling, out there on the steps of the staircase.
The outer door banged shut; then Sergei Sergeich Likhutin, still with the same abrupt gestures, began to walk about everywhere and everywhere put out the electric lights.

A Fateful Event

The ballroom pianist elegantly broke off his musical dance with a thunderous stab in the bass, while with his other hand he turned a page of music with an expert movement; but at that moment Nikolai Petrovich Tsukatov suddenly thrust his smoothly shaven chin out of his raging side-whiskers, swiftly rushing out in front of the couples over the highlights of the parquetry, impetuously drawing after him a helpless creature:

‘Pas-de-quatre, s’il vous plaît! …’

‘Come with me,’ said some kind of Madame Pompadour to Nikolai Apollonovich importunately, and Nikolai Apollonovich, who had not recognized Madame Pompadour, reluctantly gave her his hand; and, glancing with a barely visible smile at her red cavalier, with a peculiarly fierce movement of her upturned mask, Madame Pompadour stretched her hand forward and helplessly placed it on the domino’s hand; while with her other hand, with its quivering fan and covering of kid glove, Madame Pompadour gathered up her hem of azure mists, and from it, with a rustle, a silvery dancing shoe was thrust the merest way.

And off they went, off they went.

One, two, three – and the gesture of a foot beneath a backward-flexed waist.

‘Do you recognize me?’

‘No.’

‘Are you still looking for someone?’

One, two, three – and again a flexing, and again a little shoe was thrust forth.

‘I have a letter for you.’

And behind the first couple – the domino and the marquise – came harlequins, Spanish girls, young ladies as pale as mother-of-
pearl, law students, hussars and helpless muslin creatures; fans, bare shoulders, silvery backs and scarves.

Suddenly one of the red domino’s hands seized hold of her slender, azure waist, and his other hand, taking her hand, felt a letter in it: at that same moment the dark green, black and cloth-covered arms of all the couples, and the red arms of the hussars seized all the slender waists of the heliotrope,
gris-de-perle
, rustling female partners, in order again, again and again to whirl in some turns of the waltz.

Flying out in front of them all, the grey-haired host bellowed at the couples:

‘
A vos places
!’

And after him flew a helpless adolescent.

Apollon Apollonovich

Apollon Apollonovich had recovered from his palpitations; Apollon Apollonovich looked into the depths of the enfilade of rooms; hidden in the dark curtains, he stood unnoticed by anyone; he was trying to get away from the curtains in such a way that his appearance in the drawing-room would not betray the strange behaviour of a government official.
Apollon Apollonovich tried to conceal the paroxysm of his heart trouble from everyone; but it would have been even more unpleasant for him to admit that this evening’s attack had been caused by the appearance before him of the red domino: the colour red was, of course, an emblem of the chaos that was leading Russia to ruin; but he did not want to admit that the domino’s preposterous desire to frighten him had any political tinge.

And Apollon Apollonovich was ashamed of his fear.

Recovering from the paroxysm, he cast glances around the ballroom.
All that he saw there struck his gaze with garish gaudiness; the images that fleeted there had a kind of repulsive touch that shocked him personally: he saw a monster with a double-eagled head; somewhere over there, somewhere over there – quickly the ballroom was traversed by the dried-up little figure of a knight and the flashing blade of a sword, in the image and likeness of some
luminous phenomenon; he ran dimly and unclearly, without hair, without moustache, the contours of his greenish ears standing out and glittering diamond insignia dangling on his chest; and when out of the maskers and Capuchins a one-horned creature flung itself at the little knight, with its horn it broke off the knight’s luminous phenomenon; in the distance something clinked and fell to the floor in the likeness of a beam of moonlight; strangely, this image awoke in Apollon Apollonovich’s consciousness some recently forgotten incident he had encountered, and he felt his backbone; for a moment Apollon Apollonovich thought he had
tabes dorsalis
.
With revulsion he turned away from the gaudy ballroom; and passed into the drawing-room.

Here, when he appeared, everyone rose from their seats; courteously towards him came Lyubov’ Alekseyevna; and the professor of statistics, who had risen from his place, mumbled:

‘We have once had occasion to meet: very happy to see you; I have some business with you, Apollon Apollonovich.’

To which Apollon Apollonovich, kissing the hostess’s hand, rather drily remarked:

‘Well, you know, I see callers at the Institution.’

With this reply he cut off the possibility of a certain liberal party coming to meet the government.
The conjuncture was upset; and the professor had no option but to abandon that glittering house, and in future to sign without hindrance all the expressions of protest, in future to raise without hindrance his goblet at all the liberal banquets.

Getting ready to leave, he approached the hostess, on whom the editor was continuing to practise his eloquence.

‘You think that Russia’s ruin is being prepared for us in the hope of social equality.
Somehow I doubt it.
They quite simply want to sacrifice us to the devil.’

‘Oh, but how?’ the hostess exclaimed in surprise.

‘Very simply, madam: you are only surprised because you have read nothing about this question …’

‘But wait, wait!’ the professor said, once again interjecting a remark.
‘You are basing yourself on the fabrications of Taxil
¹⁷
…’

‘Taxil?’ interrupted the hostess, suddenly taking out a small, exquisite writing pad and starting to write it down:

‘Taxil, you say?
…’

‘They are preparing to sacrifice us to Satan, because the higher levels of Jewish Freemasonry belong to a certain cult, called Palladism
¹⁸
… This cult …’

‘Palladism?’ the hostess interrupted, again starting to write something in her notebook.

‘Pa-lla- … What was it, again?’

‘Palladism.’

From somewhere the housekeeper was heard giving an anxious sigh, and then a tray was brought, on which stood a faceted decanter, filled to the top with cooling fruit punch, and was placed in the room between the drawing-room and the ballroom.
And standing in the drawing-room, one could observe again and again and again how, from the melodic system of the surf of sound that beat against the walls, and from the ripple of the muslin-and-lace couples who swayed to and fro in the waltz, now one, now another young girl, covered in gleams of light, her little face flushed and the transparent yellow of her tresses dishevelled on her back, broke loose, broke loose and ran through, laughing, to the next room, the high heels of her white silk dancing shoes tapping, and quickly poured from the decanter the acidulous ruby liquid: thick, iced fruit punch.
And gulped it down avidly.