Petersburg (65 page)

He had probably looked like a simpleton.

‘Filth … O, filth!’

And to the degree that he became absorbed in Lippanchenko, in the contemplation of the parts of his body, his ways, his habits, so before him there grew – not a man, but a tarantula.

And at that point something made of steel entered his soul:

‘Yes, I know what I shall do.’

A brilliant idea dawned on him: it would all so simply come to an end: how had this not occurred to him earlier; his mission was clearly delineated.

Aleksandr Ivanovich burst into loud laughter:

‘The filth thought he could outmanoeuvre me.’

And again he felt a violent stab of pain in the molar tooth: Aleksandr Ivanovich, torn away from his reverie, clutched at his cheek; the room – universal space – again looked like a wretched room; consciousness was fading (like the light of the moon in the clouds); fever was making him shiver with anxiety and terrors, and the minutes were slowly being fulfilled; one cigarette was being smoked after the other – to the paper, to the wadding …

When suddenly … –

The Guest

Aleksandr Ivanovich Dudkin heard a strange thundering noise; the strange noise thundered downstairs; and was then repeated (he had begun to repeat himself) on the staircase; crash after crash resounded amidst intervals of silence.
As though someone were overturning a heavy, many-pood weight of metal on the stone with all his might; and the blows of the metal, shattering the stone, resounded higher and higher, closer and closer.
Aleksandr Ivanovich realized that some kind of rough intruder was smashing the staircase to pieces downstairs.
He listened closely to ascertain whether someone would open a door on the staircase and put an end to the nocturnal vagrant’s disgraceful behaviour …

And crash thundered upon crash; step after step was being shattered to pieces down there; and stone showered down beneath the blows of the heavy tread: to the dark yellow garret, from landing to landing, some fearsome being made of metal was stubbornly coming upstairs; from step to step many thousand poods were falling now with a shaking din; the steps were crumbling; and – now: with a shaking din the landing flew away from the door.

The door split apart and burst: there was a swift cracking sound – and it flew off its hinges; dim, melancholy emanations spilled from there in cloudy green billows; there the moon’s expanses began – at the shattered door, at the landing, so that the garret room itself was revealed in its ineffability, while in the centre of the threshold, from walls that let through expanses the colour of vitriol – inclining a crowned, green-coloured head, stretching forth a heavy green-coloured arm, stood an enormous body, burning with phosphorus.

It was the Bronze Guest.

The lustreless metal cloak hung down heavily – from shoulders that were shot with brilliance and from armour that was like fish-scales; cast-metal lip melted and trembled ambiguously, because once again now Yevgeny’s fate
¹⁷
was being repeated; thus did the past century repeat itself – now, at the very moment when beyond the threshold of a wretched entrance the walls of an old building were falling apart in vitriol-coloured expanses; in precisely similar fashion was Aleksandr Ivanovich’s past dismantled; he exclaimed:

‘I remembered … I’ve been waiting for you …’

The bronze-headed giant had been racing through periods of time right up to this moment, completing an iron-forged circle; quarter-centuries had flowed by; and Nicholas had ascended the throne; and the Alexanders had ascended the throne; while Aleksandr Ivanych, a shadow, had tirelessly been traversing that same circle, all the periods of time, fleeting through the days, the years, the minutes, through the damp Petersburg prospects, fleeting – in his dreams, awake, fleeting … tormentingly; and in pursuit of him, and in pursuit of everyone – the blows of metal had crashed, shattering lives: the blows of metal had crashed – in vacant lots, in towns; they had crashed – on entrance porches, landings, the steps of midnight staircases.

The periods of time had crashed; I have heard that crashing.
Have you heard it?

Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov is a blow of crashing stone; Petersburg is the blow of a stone; the caryatid of the entrance porch that is going to break loose over there is that same blow; the pursuits are inevitable; and so are the blows; you will not find sanctuary in a garret; the garret has been prepared by Lippanchenko; and the garret is a trap; one must break out of it, break out of it with blows … on Lippanchenko!

Then everything will take a different turn; under the blow of the metal that shattered stones, Lippanchenko will fly into pieces, the garret will come crashing down and Petersburg will be destroyed; the caryatid will be destroyed under the blow of the metal; and the blow to Lippanchenko will make Ableukhov’s bare head split in two.

Everything, everything, everything was illumined now, when after ten decades the Bronze Guest himself came on a visit and said to him resonantly:

‘Greetings, dear offspring!’

Only three steps: the cracks of three beams splitting under the feet of the enormous guest; with his metal rear the emperor cast in bronze resonantly clanged against a chair; his green elbow fell with all the heaviness of bronze on the cheap little table from under the fold of his cloak, with bell-like, booming sounds; and with slow absent-mindedness, the emperor removed his bronze laurels from his head; and the bronze laurel crown fell, with a crash, from his brow.

And, jangling and clanking, a hand weighing many hundreds of poods took from the folds of the camisole a small, red-glowing pipe, and, indicating the pipe with his eyes, winked at it:

‘Petro Primo Catharina Secunda …’
¹⁸

Stuck it into his strong lips, and the green smoke of unsoldered bronze began to rise beneath the moon.

Aleksandr Ivanych, Yevgeny, now understood for the first time that he had fled for a century in vain, that behind him the blows had crashed without any anger – in villages, towns, entrance porches, staircases; he had been pardoned from time immemorial, and all that had been, combined with all that was coming towards him – was only a series of ghostly passages through trials and torments before the trump of the Archangel.

And – he fell at the feet of the Guest:

‘Master!’

In the Guest’s bronze eye sockets shone a bronze melancholy; on to his shoulder amicably fell a hand that shattered stones and broke collar-bones, glowing red-hot.

‘It’s all right: die, be patient a little while …’

The metal Guest, glowing beneath the moon with a thousand-degree fever, now sat before him burning, red-purple; now, annealed, he turned a dazzling white and flowed towards the inclining Aleksandr Ivanovich in an incinerating flood; in complete delirium Aleksandr Ivanovich trembled in an embrace of many poods: the Bronze Horseman flowed with metals into his veins.

Scissors

‘
Barin
: are you asleep?’

Aleksandr Ivanovich Dudkin had for a long time now felt someone pulling at him.

‘Er,
barin
!
…’

At last he opened his eyes and forced himself into the gloomy day.

‘But
barin
!’

A head bent down.

‘What is it?’

All that Aleksandr Ivanovich could work out at this stage was that he was stretched out on the trestle.

‘The police?’

The corner of the hot pillow jutted out before his eye.

‘There aren’t any police …’

A dark red blotch was crawling away over the pillow – brr: and – through his consciousness fleeted:

‘That’s a bedbug.’

He tried to raise himself on one elbow, but fell into oblivion again.

‘Oh Lord, do wake up …’

He raised himself on his elbow:

‘Is that you, Styopka?’

He saw a spurt of moving steam; the steam came from a teapot: on his table he saw a teapot and a cup.

‘Oh, how splendid: tea.’

‘What’s splendid about it: you’re burning,
barin
…’

Aleksandr Ivanych noticed with astonishment that he still had all his clothes on; not even his wretched little overcoat had been removed.

‘How did you get here?’

‘I dropped in to see you: an awful lot of factories are on strike; the police were chasing me … I dropped in to see you, with the Prayer Book, that is …’

‘Why yes, I remember, I have the Prayer Book.’

‘What do you mean,
barin
: you must have dreamed it …’

‘But we saw each other yesterday, didn’t we …’

‘We haven’t seen each other for two days.’

‘But I thought: it seemed to me …’

What had he thought?

‘I dropped in to see you today; I saw you lying and groaning; you were tossing about, burning – all aflame.’

‘But I’ve recovered, Styopka.’

‘Funny kind of recovery!
… Here, I’ve boiled you up some tea; I’ve brought bread; a hot
kalatch
; drink up and you’ll feel better.
It’s not good for you to lie about like that …’

Metallic boiling water had flowed through his veins in the night (that he remembered).

‘Yes – yes: I had quite a substantial fever in the night, my dear fellow …’

‘And no wonder …’

‘A fever of a hundred degrees …’

‘You’ll stew yourself away with all that alcohol.’

‘Stew in my own boiling water, eh?
Ha-ha-ha …’

‘Why not?
They were talking about an alcoholic fellow who had puffs of smoke coming out of his mouth … And he stewed himself away …’

Aleksandr Ivanovich smiled an unpleasant smile.

‘You’ve drunk yourself to the little devils …’

‘There were little devils, there were … That is why I asked for the Prayer Book: so I could read them a lecture.’

‘You’ll drink yourself to the Green Dragon, too …’

Aleksandr Ivanovich gave another crooked smile:

‘Well, and all Russia, my friend …’

‘What?’

‘Is from the Green Dragon …’

And he thought to himself:

‘Oh, what’s got into me?
…’

‘That’s not true at all: Russia is Christ’s …’

‘You’re raving …’

‘You’re raving yourself: you’ll drink yourself to
her,
to
the one herself
…’

Aleksandr Ivanovich leapt up in fear.

‘To whom?’

‘You’ll drink yourself to the
white
…
woman
…’

That delirium tremens was sneaking up on him, there was no doubt.

‘Oh!
I know: I’d like you to go down to the chemist’s … And buy me some quinine: the hydrochloric kind …’

‘Oh, all right, then …’

‘And remember: not the sulphate; the sulphate is pure indulgence …’

‘It’s not quinine you want,
barin
…’

‘Away now – off you go!
…’

Stepan went out of the door, and Aleksandr Ivanovich shouted after him:

‘And Styopushka, get some dried raspberries, too: I want some raspberry jam in my tea.’

And he thought to himself:

‘Raspberries are a splendid sudorific,’ – and with nimble, somehow flowing gestures, he ran over to the water tap; but hardly had he washed himself than inside him everything flared up again, confusing reality with delirium.

Yes.
As he had been talking to Styopka, he had had a constant impression that something was waiting for him outside the door: something primordially familiar.
There, outside the door?
And he leapt to open it; but outside the door there was only the landing; and the railings of the staircase hung over the abyss; now Aleksandr Ivanovich stood over the abyss, leaning against the railings, clicking
a completely dry tongue and shivering with ague.
There was some taste, some sensation of copper: both in his mouth and on the tip of his tongue.

‘
It
is probably waiting in the courtyard …’

But in the courtyard there was no one, nothing.

In vain did he run about the secluded corners (between the cubes of stacked firewood); the asphalt gleamed silver; the aspen logs gleamed silver; there was no one, nothing.

‘But where is
it
?’

Styopka was running by there with his purchases; but he scuffled round behind the firewood away from Styopka, because it had dawned on him:

‘
It
is in a metal place …’

What was that place, and why was
it
a metallic
it
?
About all such matters Aleksandr Ivanovich’s whirling consciousness responded very vaguely.
Vainly did he endeavour to remember: there remained no memory at all of the consciousness that had dwelt in him; there remained but one recollection: some other consciousness really had been here; that other consciousness had very elegantly unfolded pictures before him; in that world, not at all similar to ours,
it
dwelt …

It
would appear again.

With awakening, every other consciousness was transformed into a mathematical dot, not a real one; and so, therefore,
it
was compressed by day as a small part of a mathematic dot; but a dot has no parts; and so:
it
did not exist.

There remained a memory of the absence of a memory and of a matter that must be executed, that would tolerate no procrastination; there remained a memory – of what?

Of a metal place
…

Something had dawned on him: and with light, springy steps he ran to the crossing of two streets; at the crossing of the two streets (he knew this) an iridescent gleam came sprinkling out of a shop window … Only where was the little shop?
And – where was the crossroads?

Objects shone there.

‘Are there metal things there?’

A remarkable predilection!

Why had such a predilection manifested itself in Aleksandr Ivanovich?
Indeed: on the corner of the crossroads metal things shone; this was a cheap little shop that sold all kinds of goods: knives, forks, scissors.

He entered the little shop.

From behind a dirty desk a sleepy mug (probably the owner of these drills, blades, and saws) dragged itself towards the counter that had begun to shine with steel; the narrow-browed head fell somehow steeply on to the chest; in the eye sockets, behind spectacles, hid small, reddish-brown eyes: