Petersburg (68 page)

‘No … Or perhaps my eyes deceive me, but … it seems to me, Sergei Sergeyevich, that … you …’

‘Quite correct: I am in civvies …’

‘No, it’s not that, Sergei Sergeich … not that … That is not what astounds me … No, what astounds me is …’

‘What?’

‘You have somehow been entirely transformed, Sergei Sergeich … You must please excuse me …’

‘That is a trivial matter, sir …’

‘Oh, of course, of course … I didn’t mean anything by it … I just meant that you’ve shaved …’

‘Hey, what is this?’ Likhutin said, taking offence now.
‘What is this about “you’ve shaved”?
Why shouldn’t I?
Yes, I’ve shaved … I couldn’t sleep last night … Why shouldn’t I have shaved?
…’

In the second lieutenant’s voice Nikolai Apollonovich was struck
by what was quite simply a kind of fury, some kind of overpowering fraughtness that was quite out of keeping with being shaved.

‘Yes, I’ve shaved …’

‘Of course, of course …’

‘Well, what of it?’ said Likhutin, refusing to calm down.
‘I’m leaving the service …’

‘You’re leaving it?
… Why?
…’

‘For private reasons, which concern me personally … Those trivial details do not concern you, Nikolai Apollonovich … Our private matters do not concern you.’

Now second lieutenant Likhutin began to draw closer.

‘As a matter of fact, there are matters which …’

Nikolai Apollonovich, pushing into passers-by with his back, began plainly to retreat:

‘There are matters, Sergei Sergeich?
…’

‘Matters which, sir …’

Nikolai Apollonovich caught the plainly ominous note in the second lieutenant’s hoarse voice; and it seemed to him that the latter was for some reason distinctly preparing to seize his arms.

‘Have you got a cold?’ he said, abruptly changing the subject, and jumped down off the pavement; in explanation of his comment he touched his own neck, alluding to the bandage round Likhutin’s neck, to some sort of cold in the throat – some quinsy or – influenza.

But Sergei Sergeyevich turned red, and swiftly jumped down off the pavement, continuing his advance in order to … to … Several passers-by stopped and looked:

‘Ni-ko-lai Apollo-novich!
…’

‘?’

‘I really haven’t come running after you in order to talk to you about your neck, the devil take it …’

A third, a fifth, a tenth person stopped, doubtless supposing that some pilferer had been caught.

‘It has nothing to do with the matter …’

Ableukhov’s attention grew acute; to himself he whispered:

‘Eh?
… What has nothing to do with what matter?’ And, evading Likhutin, he again found himself on the damp pavement.

‘What is the matter, then?
…’

Where was his memory?

The matter he had to discuss with the second lieutenant was no joke.
Yes – the domino!
The devil take it, the domino!
Nikolai Apollonovich had completely forgotten about the
domino
; now he merely remembered:

‘There is a matter, there is …’

Sofya Petrovna Likhutina had without doubt gone and talked to everyone about the incident in the unlit entrance porch; she had also talked about the incident beside the Winter Canal.

It was to this matter that Likhutin was proceeding now.

‘
This
is all I needed … Oh, the devil take it: how inconvenient it is!
… How very inconvenient!
…’

And suddenly everything was overcast.

The swarms of bowler hats grew dark; vengefully the top hats began to gleam; from all sides the nose of the ordinary man in the street began once more to hop: noses flowed by in great numbers: aquiline, cockerel-like, hen-like, greenish, grey; and – a nose with a wart on it: absurd, hurried, enormous.

Nikolai Apollonovich, avoiding Likhutin’s gaze, surveyed all this and fixed his eyes on the shop window.

Meanwhile Sergei Sergeich Likhutin, seizing Ableukhov’s arm and, now pressing it, now quite simply squeezing it, gathering around him a crowd of inquisitive gawpers – implacably, indefatigably snapped out in a wooden falsetto: – why, here was the beating of drumsticks!
–

‘I … I … I … have the honour to inform you that since this morning I … I … I …’

‘?’

‘I have been on your trail … And I have been, have been everywhere – to your lodgings, incidentally … I was let into your room … I sat there … Left a note …’

‘Oh, what a pit …’

‘None the less,’ the second lieutenant interrupted (why, here was the beating of drumsticks), ‘having a matter to settle with you: an urgent discussion of business …’

‘Now it’s beginning,’ dashed through Ableukhov’s brain, and he saw his reflection in the large shop window amidst gloves, umbrellas and similar articles.

Meanwhile a cold, whistling pandemonium had broken out along the Nevsky, swooping, rattling and whispering with small, staccato, steady drops against the umbrellas, the sternly bent backs, drenching the hair, drenching the frozen, stringy hands of artisans, students, and workers; meanwhile a cold, whistling pandemonium had broken out along the Nevsky, pouring a poisonous, mocking, metallic highlight on to the street signs, twisting billions of wet grains of dust into funnels, forming tornadoes, driving and driving them through the streets, shattering them against stones; and further, driving the bat’s wing of the clouds out of Petersburg through the vacant lots; and already a cold, whistling pandemonium had broken out above the vacant lots; with a mettlesome, buccaneer whistling it caroused through the expanses – of Samara, Tambov, Saratov – in gullies, sands, thistles, wormwood, tearing the straw from the roofs, tearing down the high-topped haystacks and spreading its sticky rot across the threshing-floors; a heavy, granular sheaf is born from it; the native, spring-water well is blocked up by it; woodlice will appear; and through a series of wet villages typhus goes raging.

The wing of the clouds has been torn; the rain has stopped; the wetness has dried up …

The Conversation Had a Sequel

Meanwhile the conversation had a sequel:

‘I have a matter to discuss with you … What I mean is – a conversation that will brook no delay; I’ve asked everywhere how we might meet: by the way, I went and asked about you at the home of … what is here name again?
… Our mutual acquaintance, Varvara Yevgrafovna …’

‘Solovyova?’

‘That’s it … I had a very painful conversation with Varvara Yevgrafovna – concerning you … Do you understand me?
… So much the worse … But what was I … Yes – this Solovyova, Varvara Yevgrafovna (by the way, I locked her in) gave me an address: the address of a friend of yours … Dudkin?
… Well, it doesn’t matter … Of course, I went to that address, and before I got as far as Mr – Dudkin, is it?
– met you in the courtyard … You
were running away from there … Yes, sir … And what is more – not alone, but with a person I did not know … No, don’t:
nomina sunt odiosa
… You looked agitated, and Mr …?
Nomina sunt odiosa
– also looked agitated … I did not venture to interrupt your conversation with Mr … Excuse me – perhaps you retain that gentleman’s surname in your memory …’

‘Sergei Sergeyevich, I …’

‘Wait, sir!
… I did not venture to interrupt your conversation, of course, although … to tell you the truth, I had only managed to catch you with great difficulty … Well, then: I followed you; at a certain distance, of course, so as not to be a witness of the conversation: I do not like to stick my nose in, Nikolai Apollonovich … But about that we can talk later …’

Here Likhutin fell into reflection, and for some reason he turned round and looked into the distance of the Nevsky.

‘I followed you … Right to this place … The two of you were talking about something … I walked behind you, and I must admit that I felt annoyed … Listen,’ he said, breaking off his narration, which was like a typographical composition, haphazardly scattered, gathered together and haphazardly read – ‘Don’t you hear?’

‘No …’

‘Shh!
… Listen …’

‘What is it?’

‘A sort of musical note – an “oo” … There … there … it’s started to hoot …’

Nikolai Apollonovich turned his head; it was strange – carriages were hurriedly flying past – and all in the same direction; the pedestrians quickened their step (every moment or so they were given a shove); some were turning back; they collided with those who were coming towards them; equilibrium was completely destroyed; he looked round and did not listen to Likhutin.

‘After that you were left alone, and you leaned against the shop window; then it started to rain … I also leaned against the shop window, on the other side … You kept staring at me, Nikolai Apollonovich, but you pretended you hadn’t noticed me at all …’

‘I didn’t recognize you …’

‘And I bowed to you …’

‘It’s as I thought,’ Nikolai Apollonovich continued to reflect in annoyance, ‘he’s pursuing me … He’s going to …’

What was he going to do to him?

About two and a half months ago, Nikolai Apollonovich had received a short letter from Sergei Sergeich, in which Sergei Sergeich Likhutin had in a persuasive tone requested him not to disturb the peace of his ardently beloved spouse – this was after the
bridge
; some of the phrases in the letter were underlined three times; from them emanated something very, very serious – it was a rather unpleasant verbal blast, without hints, but straight to the point … And in an answering letter, Nikolai Apollonovich had promised …

He had given his promise, and – broken it.

What was this?

Blocking the pavement, the passers-by had stopped; the very broad prospect was empty of carriages; neither the busy clacking of the tires, nor the clip-clop of the horses’ hooves could be heard: the carriages flew past, forming there, in the distance – a black, motionless heap, forming here – a bare, boarded void against which the pandemonium again threw in cascades its swarms of crackling drops.

‘Look there, do you see?’

‘Oh, how strange, how strange?’

It was as if for a moment the enormous round, flat slabs of granite had been exposed, over which for millennia the white foam of a waterfall had rushed; but from there, from the distances of the prospect, from the most complete emptiness and purity, between the two rows of deserted pavement, over which a thousand-voiced buzzing that increased in loudness was approaching (like the buzz of a swarm of bumble-bees) – from there a smart cab came rushing; half-standing in it, a beardless, tattered
barin
was flexed without a hat, clutching a tall and heavy flagstaff in his hand: and, tearing themselves away from the wooden staff like crests in the air, lightly-whistling blades of red calico cloth fluttered and tore – into the cold, the enormous void; it was strange to see the red, flying banner coming down the empty prospect; and when the carriage had passed, all the bowler hats, the tricornes, the top hats, the cap-bands, the feathers, the service caps began to hoot, to shuffle, to jostle their elbows and suddenly surged off the pavement into the
middle of the prospect; from the ragged clouds the pale disc of the sun poured down for a moment with a straw-coloured tint – on the houses, on the mirror-like panes, on the bowler hats, on the cap-bands.
The pandemonium had rushed past.
The rain had stopped.

The crowd swept both Ableukhov and Likhutin off the pavement; separated by a pair of elbows, they ran where all were running; taking advantage of the crush, Nikolai Apollonovich had the intention of slipping away from the untimely conversation and throwing himself into the first carriage that stood there in the distance and, without losing any precious time, driving away in the direction of home: for the bomb was there … in the writing desk … ticking away!
Until it was in the Neva he would have no peace!

The running people jostled him with their elbows; small black figures were pouring out of the shops, the courtyards, the barbers’ shops, the intersecting prospects; and into the shops, the courtyards, the lateral prospects the small black figures ran hurriedly back again; they wailed, roared, stamped: in a word, there was panic; from afar – above the heads there, blood seemed to gush; seething red crests unwound from the black soot, like throbbing lights and like deer’s antlers.

And, oh, how untimely!

From behind two or three shoulders, on a level with him, the hateful little peaked cap looked out and two vigilant eyes were anxiously fixed on him: even in the commotion, second lieutenant Likhutin did not lose sight of him, doing his utmost to break through to Ableukhov, who had broken through the crowd away from him: while all Ableukhov wanted to do was sigh with relief.

‘Don’t lose sight of me … Nikolai Apollonovich; though actually, it doesn’t matter … I won’t leave you alone.’

‘It’s as I thought,’ Ableukhov was now finally convinced, ‘he’s pursuing me: he’ll never let me go …’

And he began to break his way through to the carriage.

While behind them, from the distances of the prospect, above the heads and the rumble of voices the banners came licking like flowing tongues and like flowing radiances; and suddenly everything – the flames and the banners – stopped and froze: the sound of singing came clearly thundering out.

At last Nikolai Apollonovich broke through to the carriage; but
no sooner did he try to raise his foot into it, in order to make the driver break further through the crowd, than he felt himself again seized by the second lieutenant’s hand, thrust forward over someone else’s shoulder; at this point he stood still, as though rooted to the spot, and, simulating indifference, he said with a forced smile:

‘A demonstration!
…’

‘It doesn’t matter: I have a matter to discuss with you.’

‘I … you see … I … also agree with you completely … We have something to talk about …’

Suddenly, from somewhere in the distance, a scattered crackling of gunfire came flying past; and from the distance, torn into pieces, the same radiances that had risen in the soot above the heads of the crowd began to rush this way and that; the red whirlpools of the banners began to wave about there, and swiftly scattered on the solitarily protruding crests.