Petersburg (14 page)

Sofya Petrovna Likhutina

That lady … But that lady was Sofya Petrovna; we must at once devote many words to her.

Sofya Petrovna Likhutina was distinguished, perhaps, by an excessive
chevelure
: and she was somehow unusually lissom: if Sofya Petrovna Likhutina had let down her black hair, that black hair would, covering her entire figure, have fallen to her calves; and Sofya Petrovna Likhutina, to be quite honest, simply did not know what to do with this hair of hers, which was so black that there was, perhaps, no object any blacker; because of the excessiveness of her hair, or because of its blackness – whatever the reason: above Sofya Petrovna’s lips a fluff appeared, one that threatened her with a real moustache in her old age.
Sofya Petrovna Likhutina possessed an unusual facial colour; this colour was simply that of pearl, marked out with the whiteness of apple petals, or else – with a delicate pink; but if anything unexpectedly agitated Sofya Petrovna, she would suddenly turn completely crimson.

Sofya Petrovna Likhutina’s sweet little eyes were not sweet little eyes at all, but eyes: were I not afraid of lapsing into a prosaic tone, I should call Sofya Petrovna’s sweet little eyes not eyes, but great big eyes of a dark, blue – a dark blue colour (let us call them orbs).
These orbs now sparkled, now grew dim, now seemed vacant, somehow faded, immersed in sunken, ominously bluish sockets: and
squinted.
Her bright red lips were lips that were too large, but her little teeth (ah, her little teeth!): her pearly little teeth!
And in addition – her childlike laughter … This laughter imparted to her protruding lips a kind of charm; her lissom figure also imparted a kind of charm; and again it was excessively lissom: every movement of this figure and of its somehow nervous back was now impetuous, now languid – almost outrageously clumsy.

Sofya Petrovna often wore a black woollen dress that fastened at the back and invested her luxurious forms; if I say
luxurious forms
this means that my vocabulary has dried up, that the banal phrase ‘luxurious forms’ signifies, one way or the other, a threat to Sofya Petrovna: a premature plumpness by the age of thirty.
But Sofya Petrovna Likhutina was twenty-three.

Ah, Sofya Petrovna!

Sofya Petrovna Likhutina lived in a small flat that looked on to the Moika: there from the walls on all sides fell cascades of the brightest, most restless colours: brilliantly fiery there – and here azure.
On the walls there were Japanese fans, lace, small pendants, bows, and on the lamps: satin lampshades fluttered satin and paper wings as though they were butterflies from tropical lands; and it seemed that a swarm of these butterflies, suddenly flying off the walls, would spill with azure wings around Sofya Petrovna Likhutina (the officers she knew called her Angel Peri,
⁵
probably fusing the two concepts ‘Angel’ and ‘Peri’ quite simply into one: Angel Peri).

Sofya Petrovna Likhutina had hung up on her walls Japanese landscapes, every single one of which depicted a view of Mount Fujiyama; in the hung-up little landscapes there was no perspective at all; but neither was there any perspective in the little rooms, which were tightly stuffed with armchairs, sofas, pouffes, fans and live Japanese chrysanthemums: perspective was a satin alcove, from behind which Sofya Petrovna would come fluttering out, or a reed curtain that fell down from the door, whispering something, through which she would again come fluttering, or else Fujiyama – the motley background to her luxuriant hair; it should be said: when Sofya Petrovna Likhutina flew through from behind the door to the alcove in the mornings, she was a real Japanese woman.
But perspective there was none.

The rooms were – small rooms; each was occupied by only one enormous object: in the tiny bedroom the bed was the enormous object: in the tiny bathroom it was the bath; in the drawing-room it was the bluish alcove; in the dining-room it was the table-cum-sideboard; in the maid’s room the object was her maid; in her husband’s room the object was, of course, her husband.

Well, so how could there be any perspective?

All six tiny rooms were heated by steam central heating, which meant that in the little flat you were suffocated by a humid, hothouse heat; the panes of the windows sweated; and Sofya Petrovna’s visitor sweated; both maid and husband eternally sweated; Sofya Petrovna Likhutina was herself covered in perspiration, like a Japanese chrysanthemum in warm dew.
Well, so how could any perspective be established in such a hothouse?

And there was no perspective.

Sofya Petrovna’s Visitors

The visitor to the hothouse of Sofya Petrovna, Angel Peri (he was obliged, incidentally, to purvey chrysanthemums to the angel), always praised her Japanese landscapes, adding in passing his opinions on painting in general; and knitting her small black eyebrows, Angel Peri would at one point authoritatively blurt out: ‘This landscape belongs to the pen of Hadusai’
⁶
… The angel decidedly confused all proper names and all foreign words.
The visitor who was a painter would take exception to this; and after that he would not address Angel Peri with any more lectures on painting in general: even so, with the last of her pocket money this angel went on buying landscapes and would admire them in solitude for hours, days and months.

Sofya Petrovna did not entertain the visitor in any way: if he were a young man of polite society, devoted to amusements, she considered it necessary to laugh loudly at all the joking, not-at-all joking and most serious things he said; she laughed at everything, turning crimson with laughter, and perspiration covered her tiny nose: the young man of polite society would also then turn crimson for some reason; perspiration covered his nose, too: the young man
of society would admire her young, but far from politely social laughter; admire it so much that he classed Sofya Petrovna Likhutina as belonging to the
demi-monde
; meanwhile on the table appeared a collection box with the inscription ‘Charitable Collection’ and Sofya Petrovna Likhutina, Angel Peri, laughing loudly, would exclaim: ‘You’ve told me another “fifi” – now you must pay.’ (Sofya Petrovna Likhutina had recently founded a charitable collection for the benefit of the unemployed, into which payments were to be made for each social ‘fifi’: ‘fifis’ were what she for some reason called any intentionally-uttered stupid remark, deriving this word from ‘fie’ …).
And Baron Ommau-Ommergau, one of Her Majesty’s Yellow Cuirassiers, and Count Aven, one of her Blue Cuirassiers, and Leib Hussar Shporyshev, and a clerk of special assignments in Ableukhov’s office, Verhefden (all young men of polite society) uttered ‘fifi’ after ‘fifi’, putting twenty-copeck piece after twenty-copeck piece into the tin box.

But why did so many officers visit her?
Oh my goodness, she danced at balls; and while she was not a lady of the
demi-monde
, she was pretty; lastly, she was an officer’s wife.

If, however, Sofya Petrovna’s visitor turned out either himself to be a musician, or was a music critic, or simply a music lover, Sofya Petrovna explained to him that her idols were ‘Dunc
a
n’ and ‘Nik
i
sch’;
⁷
in enthusiastic expressions which were less verbal than gesticulatory, she explained that she herself intended to study meloplastics,
⁸
so as to be able to dance ‘The Ride of the Valkyries’ neither better nor worse than it was danced in Bayreuth; the musician, music critic or simple music lover, shaken by her incorrect pronunciation of the two names (he himself said D
u
ncan and N
i
kisch, not Dunc
a
n and Nik
i
sch), would conclude that Sofya Petrovna Likhutina was quite simply an ‘empty little female’; and become more playful; meanwhile the very pretty maid would bring a gramophone into the little room: and from its red horn the gramophone’s tin throat would belch forth ‘The Ride of the Valkyries’ at the guest.
That Sofya Petrovna Likhutina did not miss a single fashionable opera, this circumstance the guest would forget: he became crimson and excessively familiar.
Such a guest was always shown the door of Sofya Petrovna Likhutina’s flat; and for this reason musicians who performed for polite society were rare in the little hothouse; while
the representatives of polite society, Count Aven, Baron Ommau-Ommergau, Shporyshev and Verhefden, did not permit themselves unseemly escapades in relation to a woman who was, after all, an officer’s wife who bore the name of the old noble family, Likhutin: and so Count Aven, and Baron Ommau-Ommergau, and Shporyshev, and Verhefden, continued to visit.
For a time there had also been a student who had quite often moved among their number, Nikolenka Ableukhov.
And then suddenly disappeared.

Sofya Petrovna’s visitors somehow fell of their own accord into two categories: the category of guests from polite society and ‘guests so to speak’.
These guests-so-to-speak were not really guests at all: they were all welcome visitors … for the unburdening of her soul; these visitors had not made efforts to be received in the little hothouse; not in the slightest!
The Angel dragged them to her flat almost by force; and, having dragged them there by force, at once returned their visit: in their presence the Angel Peri sat with compressed lips: did not laugh, did not indulge in caprice, did not flirt at all, displaying an extreme shyness and an extreme muteness, while the guests-so-to-speak stormily argued one with the other and one heard: ‘revolution-evolution.’ And again: ‘revolution-evolution.’ They only argued about one thing, these guests-so-to-speak; they were neither golden nor even silver youth: they were poor, copper youth who had obtained their education on their own workearned farthings; in a word, they were the studying youth of the higher educational establishments, sporting an abundance of foreign words: ‘social revolution’.
And then again: ‘social evolution’.
Angel Peri unfailingly got those words mixed up.

The Officer: Sergei Sergeich Likhutin

Among the rest of the studying youth there was a certain respected, radiant person in that circle who was a regular visitor to the Likhutins: the
coursiste
Varvara Yevgrafovna (here Varvara Yevgrafovna might from time to time encounter
Nicolas
Ableukhov himself).

One day, under the radiant person’s influence, the Angel Peri illumined with her presence – well, imagine it: a political rally!
Under the radiant person’s influence, the Angel Peri placed on the table her very own copper collection box with the nebulous inscription: ‘Charitable Collection’.
This box was, of course, intended for the guests; while all the persons who belonged to the guests-so-to-speak had been once and for all exempted by Sofya Petrovna Likhutina from the requisitions; but requisitions were imposed on Count Aven, and Baron Ommau-Ommergau, and Shporyshev, and Verhefden.
Under the radiant person’s influence Angel Peri began to go to the municipal school of O.O.
in the mornings and repeated Karl Marx’s
Manifesto
over and over again to no purpose whatever.
The point was that at this time she received daily visits from a student, Nikolenka Ableukhov, whom she could without risk introduce both to Varvara Yevgrafovna (who was in love with Nikolenka) and to Her Majesty’s Yellow Cuirassier.
Being Ableukhov’s son, Ableukhov was, of course, received everywhere.

As a matter of fact, ever since the time that Nikolenka had suddenly stopped going to visit Angel Peri, that angel had suddenly, in secret from the guests-so-to-speak, gone fluttering off to the spiritualists and to the baroness (oh, what is her name?) who was preparing to enter a nunnery.
Ever since, on the table before Sofya Petrovna lay in splendour a magnificently bound little book,
Man and His Bodies
by some Madame Henri Besançon or other (Sofya Petrovna was again confused: it was not Henri Besançon,
⁹
but Annie Besant).

Sofya Petrovna assiduously concealed her new passion from both Baron Ommau-Ommergau and Varvara Yevgrafovna; in spite of her infectious laughter and her tiny little forehead, the Angel Peri’s secretiveness attained improbable proportions: thus, not once did Varvara Yevgrafovna meet Count Aven, nor even Baron Ommau-Ommergau.
On one occasion only did she accidentally catch sight in the hallway of a Leib Hussar’s fur hat with a plume.
But to this Leib Hussar’s hat with a plume no reference was thereafter made.

There was something behind all this.
God knows!

Sofya Petrovna Likhutina had yet one more visitor; an officer: Sergei Sergeyevich Likhutin; as a matter of fact, he was her husband; he was in charge of provisions somewhere out there; early in the morning he left the house; reappeared no earlier than midnight; equally meekly greeted the ordinary guests and the guests-so-to-speak,
with equal meekness said a ‘fifi’ for the sake of propriety, dropping a twenty-copeck piece into the collection box (if Count Aven or Baron Ommau-Ommergau were present at the time), or modestly nodded his head at the words ‘revolution-evolution’, drank a cup of tea and went to his little room; the young men of polite society privately called him ‘the little army fellow’, while the studying youth called him ‘the Bourbon officer’ (in 1905 Sergei Sergeyevich had had the misfortune to defend the Nikolayevsky Bridge from the workers with his half-company).
As a matter of fact, Sergei Sergeich Likhutin would have been best pleased to abstain both from ‘fifis’ and from the words ‘revolution-evolution’.
As a matter of fact, he would not have been averse to going to the baroness’s for a little spiritualist seance; but he made absolutely no attempt to insist on his modest wish by using his rights as a husband, for in absolutely no way was he a despot in relation to Sofya Petrovna; he loved Sofya Petrovna with all the strength of his soul; moreover: two and a half years earlier he had married her against the wishes of his parents, very rich landowners in Simbirsk; after that, he had been cursed by his father and deprived of his fortune; after that, to everyone’s surprise, he had entered the Gregorian Regiment.
¹⁰