Petersburg (42 page)

So that was why, after his wife left, second lieutenant Likhutin had begun to walk about everywhere and everywhere put out the electric lights.

What was he to do now?
Yesterday evening
it
had –
begun
: come
creeping, hissing
: what was
it
– why had
it begun
?
Apart from the fact of Nikolai Apollonovich Ableukhov’s disguise, there was decidedly nothing to get hold of here.
The second lieutenant’s head was the head of an ordinary man: this head refused to serve in this delicate question, and the blood rushed to his head: a wet towel on his temples would be a good thing now; and Sergei Sergeich Likhutin put a wet towel on his temples: put it on them, and then tore it off again.
Something, at any rate, had happened; and at any rate he, Likhutin, had got involved in it; and, having got involved, he had become united with it; here
it
was: knocking, playing, beating, twitching his temporal veins.

A man of the most simple straightforwardness, he had smashed against a wall: while there, into the depths on the other side of the mirror, he could not penetrate: all he could do was, out loud, in his
wife’s presence, give his honourable word as an officer that he would not voluntarily readmit his wife to the premises, if that wife were to go to the ball without him.

What was he to do?
What was he to do?

Sergei Sergeich Likhutin grew agitated and struck another match: the reddish-brown flambeaux illumined the face of a madman; anxiously now did it press up close against the clock: two hours had already passed since Sofya Petrovna had left; two hours, that was a hundred and twenty minutes; having counted the number of minutes that had elapsed, Sergei Sergeich began to count the seconds, too:

‘Sixty times a hundred and twenty?
Two times six are twelve; and carry one in your mind …’

Sergei Sergeich Likhutin clutched his head:

‘One in your mind; my mind – yes: my mind was smashed against the mirror … The mirrors ought to be taken out!
Twelve, carry one in your mind – yes: one little piece of glass … No, one lived second …’

His thoughts had grown confused: Sergei Sergeich Likhutin was pacing about in complete darkness: tap-tap-tap went Sergei Sergeich’s footsteps; and Sergei Sergeich went on counting:

‘Two times six are twelve; and carry one in your mind: one time six is six; plus – one unit; an abstract unit is not a little piece of glass.
And then two zeroes: and that makes seven thousand two hundred massive seconds.’

And, having triumphed over this most complex cerebral work, Sergei Sergeich Likhutin, rather inappropriately, displayed his triumph.
Suddenly he remembered: his face grew dark:

‘Seven thousand two hundred massive seconds since she ran off: two hundred thousand seconds – no, it’s all finished!’

On the expiration of seven thousand seconds, the two hundred and first second had, it appeared, opened in time the beginning of the fulfilment of his officer’s word: he had lived through the seven thousand two hundred seconds as though they had been seven thousand years; from the creation of the world until the present time not much more had elapsed, after all.
And it seemed to Sergei Sergeich that ever since the creation of the world he had been imprisoned in this darkness with a most acute headache: by spontaneous thinking, the brain’s autonomy in spite of his self-tormenting
personality.
And Sergei Sergeich Likhutin feverishly began to fuss about in a corner; for a moment he fell quiet; began to cross himself; hurriedly from some little box or other he threw out a rope (it looked like a snake), uncoiled it, and made a noose with it: the noose refused to tighten.
And Sergei Sergeich Likhutin, in despair now, ran into his little study; the rope went trailing after him.

But what was Sergei Sergeich Likhutin doing?
Was he keeping his officer’s word?
No, good heavens, no.
All he did was for some reason take soap out of a soap dish, squat down and soap the piece of rope in front of a small basin placed on the floor.
And as soon as he had soaped the piece of rope, all his actions assumed a downright fantastic tinge; indeed one could have said: never in his life had he done such original things.

Well, judge for yourself!

For some reason he got up on to a table (having first taken the cloth off it); and lifted a Viennese chair from the floor and put it on the table; clambering up on the chair, he carefully took down a lamp; carefully put it down at his feet; then instead of the lamp Sergei Sergeich Likhutin affixed to the hook the rope, slippery with soap; crossed himself and froze; and slowly, holding his noose, raised it above his head with the look of a man who has resolved to wind a snake around his neck.

But a certain brilliant idea had dawned on Sergei Sergeich: he must shave his hairy neck; and, what was more: he must calculate the number of thirds and fourths: twice multiply by the number sixty – seven thousand two hundred.

With this brilliant idea, Sergei Sergeich Likhutin strode into his little study; there by the light of a candle-end he began to shave his hairy neck (Sergei Sergeich had sensitive skin, and this sensitive skin became covered with pimples when he shaved).
Having shaved his chin and neck, Sergei Sergeich suddenly cut off one of his moustaches with the razor: he must shave off the other one too because – how would it be otherwise?
When they broke down the door there and came in, they would see him with only one moustache, and moreover … in such a position; no, one must never begin an undertaking without having shaved properly.

And Sergei Sergeich Likhutin shaved himself clean: and, having shaved, he looked like a most complete idiot.

Well, now there was no point in lingering: it was all finished – his face had a quality of complete shavenness.
But just at that moment the doorbell rang in the vestibule; and Sergei Sergeich threw down the soapy razor in annoyance, spattering all his fingers with little hairs, and looked at the clock with regret (how many hours had flown by?) – what was he to do, what was he to do?
For one moment Sergei Sergeich thought of postponing his undertaking; he had not known that he would be caught in the act; of the fact that there was no time to lose he was reminded by the doorbell, which rang for a second time; and he jumped up on to the table in order to take the noose down from the hook; but the rope would not obey, slipping in his soapy fingers; Sergei Sergeich Likhutin got down again in the most rapid fashion and began to creep stealthily into the vestibule; and while he was creeping stealthily into the vestibule, he noticed: the blue-black gloom that had suffused the room all night like ink was beginning to melt away; slowly the inky gloom was turning grey, becoming a grey gloom: and in the greying gloom objects were delineated; a chair placed upon the table, a lamp on the floor; and above all this – a wet noose.

In the vestibule Sergei Sergeich Likhutin put his head to the door; he froze; but agitation must have induced such a degree of forgetfulness in Sergei Sergeich that it was inconceivable for him to undertake any action of any kind: why, Sergei Sergeich Likhutin had not noticed at all that he was breathing heavily; and when on the other side of the door he heard his wife’s anxious cries, he began to shout at the top of his voice from fright; having shouted, he saw that all was lost and rushed to put his original plan into practice; swiftly jumped up on the table, stuck out his freshly-shaven neck; and quickly began to tighten the rope around his freshly-shaven neck that was covered in pimples, first for some reason putting two fingers between the rope and his neck.

After this he for some reason shouted:

‘Word and deed!’
²³

He pushed the table away with one foot; and the table rolled away from Sergei Sergeich on brass casters (this was the sound that Sofya Petrovna Likhutina had heard – there, on the other side of the door).

What Next?

In a moment … –

Sergei Sergeich Likhutin’s legs began to jerk convulsively in the darkness; as they did so he distinctly saw the reflections of the street lamps on the air vent of the stove; he distinctly also heard a knocking and a scratching at the front door; something pressed two fingers with force against his chin, and he was unable to tear them away; it further seemed to him that he was choking; above him now there was a sound of cracking (that must be the veins in his head bursting), and slaked lime was flying all around; and Sergei Sergeich Likhutin went crashing down (straight towards death); and at once Sergei Sergeich Likhutin rose up from this death, having received a good, healthy kick in the next existence; at this point he saw that he had regained his senses; and when he regained his senses, he realized that he had not risen up from the dead, but had sat down on some kind of flat material object; he was sitting by himself on the floor, experiencing pain in his spine and his fingers which had somehow got through between the rope and his throat, and were now jammed there; Sergei Sergeich Likhutin began to pull at the rope around his neck; and the noose widened.

At this point he realized that he had very nearly hanged himself: had not succeeded in hanging himself – by a very small margin.
And he sighed with relief.

Suddenly the inky gloom turned grey; and became a grey gloom: at first greyish; and then – only just perceptibly grey; Sergei Sergeich Likhutin saw quite plainly that he was sitting absurdly surrounded by walls, that the walls were quite plainly hung with grey Japanese landscapes, imperceptibly fusing with the surrounding night; the ceiling, which at night had plainly been adorned by the reddish-brown lace of the street lamp, had now begun to lose its lace; the lace of the street lamp had long run out, was becoming dim blotches that stared in astonishment at the greyish morning.

But let us return to the unhappy second lieutenant.

A few words must be said in Sergei Sergeich’s justification; Sergei Sergeich’s sigh of relief escaped from him unconsciously, in the way that the movements of people who wilfully drown
themselves are unconscious at the moment before their immersion in the cold, green depths.
Sergei Sergeich Likhutin (do not smile!) had quite seriously intended to settle all his accounts with the earth, and he would without any doubt at all have realized this intention, had not the ceiling been rotten (for this one must blame the builder of the house); so that the sigh of relief did not in any way concern Sergei Sergeich’s personality, but rather his fleshly, animal and impersonal shell.
However this may have been, this shell was squatting down and listening to everything (to a thousand rustlings); while Sergei Sergeich’s spirit was displaying the most complete sang-froid.

In the twinkling of an eye all his thoughts became clear; in the twinkling of an eye a dilemma arose before his consciousness: what was he to do now, what was he to do?
His revolvers were hidden away somewhere; it would take too long to find them … The razor?
With the razor – ugh!
And involuntarily everything in him winced; to begin an attempt with the razor after the first attempt he had just made … No: the most natural thing was to stretch out here on the floor, leaving the future to fate; yes, but in that natural instance Sofya Petrovna (she had undoubtedly heard the crash) would instantly rush, if she had not already rushed, to the yard-keeper; the police would be telephoned, a crowd would gather; under pressure from her, the front door would be broken down, and
they
would burst in here; and, having burst in, would see him, second lieutenant Likhutin, with his face unusually shaven (Sergei Sergeich had not suspected that he would look such an idiot without his moustache) and with a rope around his neck, squatting there amidst pieces of plaster.

No, no, no!
Never would the second lieutenant come to that: the honour of his uniform was dearer to him than the word he had given his wife.
There remained only one thing: to open the door in shame, attain a reconciliation with his wife, Sofya Petrovna, as soon as possible, and give her a plausible explanation for the mess and the plaster.

Quickly he threw the rope under the sofa and in a most ignominious fashion ran to the front door, on the other side of which nothing was now audible.

With the same involuntary breathing, he opened the front door,
standing indecisively on the threshold; he was seized by a burning shame (he had not succeeded in hanging himself!); and the raging storm died away within his soul; as though, having torn loose from the hook he had broken off within himself all that had just raged there: his anger at his wife, his anger in connection with Nikolai Apollonovich’s outrageous behaviour.
After all, he himself had now committed an outrage that was unprecedented and could not be compared with anything that had gone before: had wanted to hang himself – and instead of that had torn the hook out of the ceiling.

In a moment … –

No one came running into the room: even so, there was someone standing out there (he could see); at last, Sofya Petrovna Likhutina rushed in; rushed in and burst into sobs:

‘But what is this?
What is this?
Why is it dark in here?’

And Sergei Sergeich lowered his eyes in embarrassment.

‘What was all that noise and racket?’

Embarrassed, Sergei Sergeich squeezed her cold little fingers in the darkness.

‘Why are your hands all covered in soap?
… Sergei Sergeyevich, dear, what does this mean?’

‘You see, Sonyushka …’

But she interrupted him:

‘Why are you hoarse?
…’

‘You see, Sonyushka … I … stood in front of the open ventilator window too long (it was a careless thing to do, of course) … Well, and so I got hoarse … But that’s not the point …’

He faltered.

‘No, don’t, don’t,’ Sergei Sergeich Likhutin almost shouted, tugging away his wife’s hand, which was about to turn on the electric light, ‘not here, not right now – let’s go into that room.’

And he dragged her by force into the little study.

In the little study the objects could already be discerned quite plainly; and for a moment it seemed as if the grey row made up of the lines of the chairs and the walls with the imperceptibly recumbent planes of shadows and an infinity of some kind of shaving prerequisites was only an airy lace, a cobweb; and through this extremely fine cobweb the dawn sky was emerging shamefacedly and tenderly in the window.
Sergei Sergeich’s face stood out
indistinctly; but when Sofya Petrovna bent right down to his face, she saw before her … No, it was beyond description: she saw before her the completely blue face of an unknown idiot; and the eyes of this face were guiltily lowered.