Petersburg (52 page)

In addition to the bed … yes: here I must say: above the bed hung a small icon depicting Serafim of Sarov’s
³
thousand nights of prayer amidst the pine trees, on a stone (here I must say – Aleksandr Ivanovich wore a small silver cross under his shirt).

In addition to the bed one could observe a small, smoothly planed table that was deprived of all ornament: tables precisely such as this figure in the aspect of stands for wash-bowls – in cheap country dachas; tables precisely such as this are sold everywhere at markets on Sundays; this table served Aleksandr Ivanovich in his abode at once as a writing desk and as a bedside table; while the wash-bowl was altogether absent; in performing his toilet Aleksandr Ivanovich took advantage of the services of a water tap, a sink and a sardine tin that contained a scrap of Kazan soap floating in its own slime; there was also a clothes-rack: with trousers; the tip of a worn-down shoe gazed out from under the bed with its perforated toe (Aleksandr Ivanovich had dreamed that this perforated shoe was a living creature: a domestic creature, perhaps, like a dog or a cat; it shuffled around independently, creeping about the room and rustling in the corners; when Aleksandr Ivanovich was about to feed it a piece of white bread he had chewed in his mouth, the shuffling creature had bitten him on the finger with its perforated opening, and then he had woken up).

There was also a brown suitcase that had long ago altered its original shape, and contained objects of the most dreadful contents.

All the furnishings of the room, if such it may be called, faded into the background before the colour of the wallpaper, unpleasant and brazen, neither quite dark yellow nor quite dark brown, showing
enormous stains of damp: in the evenings a woodlouse crawled now over this stain, now over another.
All the furnishings of the room were shrouded in bands of tobacco smoke.
One had to smoke for at least twelve hours non-stop in order to turn the colourless atmosphere into a dark grey, dark blue one.

Aleksandr Ivanovich Dudkin surveyed his abode, and was again (as had previously happened) seized by a yearning to get out of the smoke-steeped room – away: yearned for the street, for the grimy fog, in order to adhere, to be glued, to be fused with shoulders, with backs, with greenish faces on a Petersburg prospect and to show his solid, enormous, grey face and shoulder.

Swarms of the October mists were greenly clinging to the window of his room; Aleksandr Ivanovich Dudkin felt an uncontainable desire to be permeated by the fog, to permeate his thoughts in it in order to drown in it the nonsense that chattered in his brain, to extinguish it by flashes of delirium that emerged in fiery spheres (the spheres later burst), extinguish it by means of a gymnastics of striding legs; he had to stride – to stride again, again and again; from prospect to prospect, from street to street; to stride until his brain grew completely numb, until he flopped down at the table of an eating-house and scorched himself inside with vodka.
Only in this aimless wandering through the streets and crooked lanes – under the street lamps, the fences, the chimneys – can the thoughts that oppress the soul be extinguished.

As he put on his wretched little coat, Aleksandr Ivanovich felt his ague; and with melancholy he thought:

‘Oh, now I could do with some quinine!’

But where would he get quinine …

And, as he went down the staircase, he again thought with melancholy:

‘Oh, now I could do with some strong tea with dried raspberries!
…’

The Staircase

The staircase!

Threatening, shadowy, damp – it had pitilessly echoed his shuffling step: threatening, shadowy, damp!
That had been last night.
Here Aleksandr Ivanovich Dudkin for the first time remembered that he really had passed this way yesterday: it had
happened
.
But what had happened?

What?

Yes: from every door – a disastrous silence was expanding at him; it enlarged without measure and kept forming some kind of rustlings; and without measure, without cease the unknown cretin there swallowed his own spittle with viscous distinctness (that had not been in a dream, either); there were terrible, unfamiliar sounds, all woven from the hollow groanings of the ages; from above, through the narrow windows, one could see – and he did see it – how the gloom there from time to time swept past, whipped up into ragged outlines, and how everything was illumined, when a pale, dim turquoise spread itself at his feet without a single sound, in order to lie untrembling and dead.

There – to there: there the moon was gazing.

But the swarms kept rushing: swarm after swarm – shaggy-maned, transparent and smoky, thunder-bringing – all the swarms hurled themselves at the moon: the pale, dim turquoise grew dark; from all sides shadow burst out, shadow kept covering everything.

Here for the first time Aleksandr Ivanovich Dudkin remembered how yesterday he had run up this staircase, exerting his last fading energies and without any hope (what hope?) of overcoming – what, precisely?
While some kind of black outline (was this really real?) kept running for all it was worth – at his heels, on his track.

And was annihilating him irrevocably.

The staircase!

On a grey weekday it is peaceful, everyday; down at the bottom a hollow banging reverberates: that is someone chopping cabbage – the tenant in flat number four has set up in the cabbage trade for the winter; on an ordinary day this is what it looks like – railings, doors, stairs; on the railings: a cat-smelling, half-torn, worn-through carpet – from flat number four; a floor-polisher with a swollen cheek was beating it with a carpet-beater; and some blonde hussy or
other, sneezing into her apron from the dust, as she comes out of the door; between the floor-polisher and the hussy, of their own accord, words emerge:

‘Oh!’

‘Give us a hand, then, dearie …’

‘Stepanida Markovna … What else have you brought out here …’

‘All right, all right …’

‘And what sort of …’

‘Now it’s “brought out here”, and in there it’s “having your tea” …’

‘And what sort of – I say – work is it …’

‘At the meeting you wouldn’t loaf about: the work would go swimmingly …’

‘Don’t you say bad things about the meeting.
You’ll be grateful to them later on!’

‘Then give this feather mattress a beating, oh, you – knight in armour!’

The doors!

That one, there; and that one there … The oilcloth has been ripped off that one; the horsehair bulges shaggily out of the holes; while on this door a card has been fixed with a pin; and on it is written ‘Zakatalkin’ … Who Zakatalkin is, what his first name, what his patronymic, what profession he practises – I leave it to the curious to judge: ‘Zakatalkin’ – and that is all.

From behind the door the bow of a violin diligently saws out a familiar little tune.
And a voice is heard:

‘To the beloved fatherland …’

I suppose Zakatalkin is a violinist employed in service: a violinist from the little orchestra of some restaurant.

That is all that can be noticed from an observation of the doors … Yes – one more thing: in former years a tub was placed near the door, which gave off a rancid smell: for filling with water from the water cart: with the installation of water the water carts have gone out of use in the cities.

The stairs?

They are strewn with cucumber rinds, splashes of street dirt and eggshells …

And, Tearing Himself Free, Broke into a Run

Aleksandr Ivanovich Dudkin cast his gaze about the staircase, the floor-polisher and the hussy, who was trudging out of the doorway with another feather mattress; and – it was a strange thing: the everyday simplicity of this staircase did not dispel what had been experienced here the night before; and now, in broad daylight, amidst the stairs, the eggshells, the floor-polisher and the cat, which was devouring a chicken entrail on the window sill, to Aleksandr Ivanovich returned the sense of fear he had once experienced before: all that had happened to him during the past night really happened; and tonight what had really happened would return: he would return at night: the staircase would be shadowing and threatening; some kind of black outline would again dog his heels behind the door with the card that read ‘Zakatalkin’ there would again be the cretin’s swallowing of spittle (perhaps – of spittle, but perhaps – of blood) …

And the familiar, impossible words would resound with utter distinctness:

‘Yes, yes, yes … It is I … I annihilate irrevocably …’

Where had he heard that?

Out of here!
To the street!
…

He must start striding again, keep striding, striding away: until his strength was completely exhausted, until his brain was completely numb and then flop down at the table of an eating-house, so that he should not dream of murky phantoms; and then resume his old activity: trudging through Petersburg, losing himself in the damp reeds, in the hanging mists of the seashore, to turn his back on everything in torpor and to regain consciousness amidst the damp lights of the Petersburg suburbs.

Aleksandr Ivanovich Dudkin was about to go trotting off down the many-staired stone staircase; but suddenly stopped; he had
noticed that some strange fellow in a black Italian cloak and a similarly fantastically turned-down hat, striding three steps at a time, was hurtling towards him, his head bowed low, and desperately twirling a heavy cane in his hand.

His back was bent.

This strange fellow in the black Italian cloak flew at Aleksandr Ivanovich hurry-scurry; he very nearly poked him in the chest with his head; and when his head jerked back, Aleksandr Ivanovich Dudkin saw, right in front of his nose, the deathly pale and perspiring forehead of – imagine!
– Nikolai Apollonovich: a forehead with a throbbing, swollen vein; only by this characteristic sign (the leaping vein) did Aleksandr Ivanovich recognize Ableukhov: not by his wildly squinting eyes, nor by his strange, foreign attire.

‘Hello: I’ve – come to see you.’

Nikolai Apollonovich rapped out these words at great speed; and – what do you suppose?
Did he rap them out in a threatening whisper?
Oh, and how he was puffing and panting.
Without even offering his hand, he swiftly pronounced – in a threatening whisper:

‘I must observe to you, Aleksandr Ivanovich, that I
cannot do it
.’

‘?’

‘You do, of course, realize that I
cannot do it
: I
cannot
, and I
do not want
to do it; in a word – I
will not do it
.’

‘!’

‘This is a refusal: an irreversible refusal.
You may communicate it to the proper quarters.
And I ask you to leave me in peace …’

As Nikolai Apollonovich said this, his face displayed confusion, even, almost, alarm.

Nikolai Apollonovich turned; and, twirling his heavy cane, Nikolai Apollonovich rushed back down the stairs, as though he were rushing into flight.

‘But wait, but wait,’ Aleksandr Ivanovich Dudkin cried, hurrying after him and feeling beneath his feet the tremor of the staircase as it flew past.

‘Nikolai Apollonovich?’

By the exit he caught Ableukhov by the sleeve, but the latter tore himself away.
Nikolai Apollonovich turned towards Aleksandr Ivanovich; with a barely trembling hand Nikolai Apollonovich held
on to the brim of his dashingly cocked hat; and, trying not appear afraid, blurted out in a semi-whisper:

‘This is, so to speak … vile … Do you hear?’

He quickened his pace across the little courtyard.

Aleksandr Ivanovich snatched at the door for a moment; Aleksandr Ivanovich felt the most intense anxiety: an insult – for nothing, about nothing; for a second he hung back, wondering what he should do now; involuntarily he began to twitch; with an unconscious movement he exposed his most delicate neck; and then in two leaps caught up with the fugitive.

He seized hold of the black edge of the Italian cloak that was flying away from him; at this point, the cloak’s owner began desperately to tear himself away; for an instant they began to wallow about among the stacked firewood and in the struggle something fell ringing on the asphalt.
With raised cane, Nikolai Apollonovich jerkily, panting with anger, began to shout out loudly some impermissible and, above all, offensive nonsense of his own: offensive to Aleksandr Ivanovich.

‘Is this what you call revolutionary action, Party work?
Surrounding me with detectives … Dogging my heels everywhere I go … When you yourself have lost faith in everything … Read the Book of Revelation … While at the same time you shadow me … My dear sir, you … you … you …’

At last, tearing himself free, Nikolai Apollonovich Ableukhov broke into a run: they flew along the street.

The Street

The street!

How it has changed: how it, too, has been changed by these grim days!

Over there – those cast-iron bars of the fence of some little garden; the crimson leaves of the maples beat into the wind there, striking against the bars; but the crimson leaves have already blown away; and only the branches – dry skeletons – have stood out black there, grinding together.

It was September: the sky was light blue and cloudless; but now
all that has changed: ever since morning, the sky has begun to fill with a flood of heavy tin: September is no more.

They were flying along the street.

‘But wait, Nikolai Apollonovich,’ the excited and greatly offended Dudkin kept on, ‘you must agree that we can’t possibly part now until we’ve had an explanation …’

‘There’s nothing more to talk about,’ Nikolai Apollonovich snapped curtly from under his dashingly cocked hat.

‘Explain yourself more clearly,’ Aleksandr Ivanovich insisted in his turn.

Offence and anxious astonishment were displayed on his twitching features; the astonishment was, we shall say for our own part, on this occasion unfeigned, so unfeigned, indeed, that Nikolai Apollonovich Ableukhov could not but notice its unfeigned quality in spite of the distraction of his wrath.

He turned round and without his previous vehemence, but with a kind of tearful malice, began impetuously to jabber: