Petersburg (26 page)

There he was, the regenerator of the rotten order, to whom she (soon, soon!) was going to propose a citizens’ marriage upon the accomplishment of the mission that had been appointed to him, upon which there would follow a universal, world-wide explosion: here she choked (Varvara Yevgrafovna was in the habit of swallowing her saliva too loudly).

‘What is it?’

‘Nothing: a lofty motif came into my head.’

But Sofya Petrovna was not listening any more: unexpectedly to herself, she turned and saw that there, there on the front square of the palace in the light purple thrust of the Neva’s last rays, somehow strangely turned towards her, stooping, and hiding his face in his collar, which caused his student’s peaked cap to slip down, stood
Nikolai Apollonovich; it seemed to her that he was smiling in a most unpleasant manner and in any case cut a rather ridiculous figure: wrapped tightly in his overcoat, he looked both round-shouldered and somehow lacking arms, with the wing of the overcoat dancing most preposterously in the wind; and, seeing all that, she swiftly turned her little head.

Long yet did he stand, bent, smiling in an unpleasant manner and in any case cutting the rather ridiculous figure of a man without arms, the wing of his overcoat dancing so preposterously in the wind against the crimson stain of the sunset’s wedge.
But in any case he was not looking at her: was it indeed possible for him, with his awkwardness, to study retreating figures; he was laughing to himself and staring far, far away, almost further than was proper – there, where the island buildings sank, where they barely glimmered through the mist in the crimson smoke.

While she – she wanted to cry; she wanted her husband, Sergei Sergeich Likhutin, to go up to that scoundrel, suddenly strike him in the face with a cypress fist and say, apropos of this, his honourable, officer’s word.

The unmerciful sunset sent blow upon blow from the very horizon itself; higher rose the immensity of the rosy ripples; yet higher the small white clouds (now rosy) like fine impressions of broken mother-of-pearl were disappearing in a turquoise all; that turquoise all poured evenly between the splinters of rosy mother-of-pearl: soon the mother-of-pearl, drowning in the heights, as if retreating into an oceanic depth – would extinguish in the turquoise the most delicate reflections: the dark blue, the bluish-green depth would surge everywhere: over houses, granite and water.

And there would be no sunset.

Comte–Comte–Comte!

The lackey served the soup.
Before the senator’s plate, as a preliminary, he placed the pepper-pot from the cruet-stand.

Apollon Apollonovich appeared out of the doorway in his small grey jacket; just as quickly did he sit down; and the lackey removed the lid from the smoking tureen.

The left-hand door opened; swiftly through the left-hand door sprang Nikolai Apollonovich, wearing a student’s uniform jacket buttoned up to the neck; the jacket had a very high collar (from the time of Emperor Alexander I).

Both raised their eyes to each other; and both were embarrassed (they were always embarrassed).

Apollon Apollonovich flung his gaze from object to object; Nikolai Apollonovich felt his daily confusion: his two completely unnecessary arms hung down on both sides of his waist; and in an access of fruitless obsequiousness, running up to his parent he began to wring his slender fingers (finger against finger).

A daily spectacle awaited the senator: his unnaturally polite son overcame, with unnatural swiftness, at a skip and a run, the expanse of distance from the door – all the way to the dinner table.
Apollon Apollonovich impetuously rose (anyone would have said – leapt up) before his son.

Nikolai Apollonovich tripped against the table leg.

Apollon Apollonovich proffered to Nikolai Apollonovich his pudgy lips; to these pudgy lips Nikolai Apollonovich pressed two lips; the lips touched one another; and two fingers shook the customarily sweating hand.

‘Good evening, Papa!’

‘My respects, sir …’

Apollon Apollonovich sat down.
Apollon Apollonovich caught hold of the pepper-pot.
It was Apollon Apollonovich’s custom to over-pepper his soup.

‘From the university?
…’

‘No, I’ve been out for a walk …’

And a froglike expression fleeted across the grinning mouth of the courteous offspring, whose face we have had time to examine taken in isolation from all the grimaces, smiles or gestures of courtesy that were the bane of Nikolai Apollonovich’s life, if only because of the
Grecian mask
there remained not a trace; these smiles, grimaces, or simply gestures of courtesy streamed in a kind of constant cascade before the fluttering gaze of the absent-minded papa; and his hand, as it brought the spoon to his mouth, clearly trembled, splashing soup.

‘Have you come from the Institution, Papa?’

‘No, from the minister …’

We saw in the foregoing that when he sat in his office Apollon Apollonovich came to the conviction that his son was an arrant rogue: thus daily did the sixty-eight-year-old papa commit upon his own blood and his own flesh a certain act which, though comprehensible, was none the less an act of terrorism.

But those were abstract, office conclusions, which were not taken out into the corridor, nor (even more so) into the dining-room.

‘Would you like some pepper, Kolenka?’

‘I’d like some salt, Papa …’

Apollon Apollonovich, looking at his son, or rather fluttering around the grimacing young philosopher with fleeting eyes, according to the tradition of this hour gave himself up to a rush of, so to speak, paternality, avoiding the office in his thoughts.

‘Well, I like pepper: pepper makes everything tastier …’

Nikolai Apollonovich, lowering his eyes to his plate, banished the tiresome associations from his memory: the Neva sunset and the inexpressible quality of the rosy ripples, the most delicate reflections of mother-of-pearl, the bluish-green depth; and against the background of most delicate mother-of-pearl …

‘Indeed, sir!
…

‘Indeed, sir!
…

‘Very good, sir …’

Apollon Apollonovich was engaging his son (or rather – himself) in conversation.

The silence over the table grew heavier.

This silence during the eating of the soup did not trouble Apollon Apollonovich in the slightest (old people are not troubled by silence, while nervous youth is) … As he searched for a topic of conversation, Nikolai Apollonovich experienced genuine torment over his now cold plate of soup.

And unexpectedly to himself he burst out:

‘I say … I …’

‘I say, what?’

‘No … Just … nothing …’

Over the table silence weighed.

Nikolai Apollonovich again, unexpectedly to himself, burst out (this was true fidgetiness, now!)

‘I say … I …’

But what was this ‘I say I’?
He had not yet thought up a sequel to the words that leapt out; and there was no idea to accompany the ‘I say … I …’.
And Nikolai Apollonovich stumbled …

‘I shall have to think up something to go with “I say I”,’ he thought.
And could think of nothing.

Meanwhile Apollon Apollonovich, disturbed a second time by his son’s preposterous verbal confusion, suddenly hurled up his gaze questioningly, sternly and capriciously, indignant at the ‘mumbling’ …

‘I’m sorry: what did you say?’

While in the head of his dear offspring senseless words frantically began to revolve:

‘Perception …

‘Apperception …’
¹³

‘Pepper is not pepper, but a term: terminology …

‘Logia, logic …’

And suddenly out whirled:

‘I say … I … read in Cohen’s
Theorie der Erfahrung
…’
¹⁴

And stumbled again.

‘Well, and what sort of book is that, Kolenka?’

In addressing his son, Apollon Apollonovich involuntarily observed the traditions of childhood; and in intercourse with this
arrant rogue
addressed the arrant rogue as ‘Kolenka’, ‘dear offspring’, ‘my friend’ and even – ‘my good fellow’ …

‘Cohen, the most important representative of European Kantianism.’

‘I’m sorry – Kantianism?’

‘Kantianism, Papa.’

‘Kan-ti-an-ism?’

‘Precisely …’

‘But wasn’t Kant refuted by Comte?
¹⁵
Is it Comte you mean?’

‘Not Comte, Papa – Kant!
…’

‘But Kant is not scientific …’

‘It’s Comte who’s not scientific …’

‘I don’t know, I don’t know, my friend: in our time we saw it differently …’

Apollon Apollonovich, now tired and for some reason unhappy, slowly rubbed his eyes with small, cold fists, repeating absent-mindedly:

‘Comte …

‘Comte …

‘Comte …’

Lustre, lacquer, glitter and some kind of red sparks began to rush about in his eyes (Apollon Apollonovich always saw before his eyes, so to speak, two different types of space: the space that is ours and also the space of some spinning network of lines, which turned gold at nights).

Apollon Apollonovich reasoned that his brain was once again suffering violent rushes of blood caused by the intense haemorrhoidal condition he had been in all the previous week; his cranium leaned against the dark side of his armchair, into a dark depth; his dark blue eyes stared questioningly:

‘Comte … Yes: Kant …’

He thought for a moment and hurled his eyes up at his son:

‘Well, and what sort of book is that, Kolenka?’

It was with instinctive cunning that Nikolai Apollonovich had begun to talk about Cohen; a conversation about Cohen was a most neutral conversation; with this conversation
other conversations
were got out of the way; and any kind of explanatory scene was postponed (from day to day – from month to month).
And moreover: the habit of holding edifying conversations had been preserved in Nikolai Apollonovich’s soul from the days of his childhood: from the days of childhood Apollon Apollonovich had encouraged conversations of this kind in his son: thus formerly upon Nikolai Apollonovich’s return from the gymnasium had son explained to papa with
visible ardour the details of cohorts, testudos and
turres
; along with other details of the Gallic War; with satisfaction then did Apollon Apollonovich attend to his son, indulgently encouraging the interests of the gymnasium.
And in later years Apollon Apollonovich would even put his hand on Kolenka’s shoulder.

‘You ought to read Mill’s
Logic
,
¹⁶
Kolenka: you know, it’s a useful book … Two volumes … In my time I read it from cover to cover …’

And Nikolai Apollonovich, who had only just swallowed Sigwart’s
Logic
,
¹⁷
none the less took to entering the dining-room for tea with a most enormous tome in his hand.
Apollon Apollonovich would, as if casually, ask him with affection:

‘What’s that you’re reading, Kolenka?’

‘Mill’s
Logic
, Papa.’

‘Indeed, sir, indeed, sir … Very good, sir!’

Even now, divided to the end, they unconsciously returned to old memories: their dinners frequently concluded with an edifying conversation …

At one time Apollon Apollonovich had been a professor of the philosophy of law:
¹⁸
during that time he had read much and to the end.
All that had vanished without a trace: faced with the elegant pirouettes of congeneric logic, Apollon Apollonovich felt a futile heaviness.
Apollon Apollonovich was unable to answer the arguments of his dear offspring.

He did, however, reflect: ‘One must give Kolenka credit: his mental apparatus is distinctly developed.’

At the same time Nikolai Apollonovich felt with satisfaction that his parent was an uncommonly conscientious listener.

Even a semblance of friendship would arise between them by dessert: they were sometimes reluctant to break off the dinner-time conversation, as if they were both afraid of one another; as though each of them were privately and sternly signing a death sentence on the other.

Both stood up: both began to walk about the enfilade of rooms; white Archimedes rose into the shadow: there, there; and also there; the enfilade of rooms lay black; from afar, from the drawing-room, came the reddish flashes of a fermentation of light; from afar, from the drawing-room, a glint of fire began to crackle.

Thus once upon a time had they wandered about the empty enfilade of rooms – the little boy and the … still tender father; the still tender father would pat the fair-haired little boy on the shoulder; afterwards the tender father would lead the little boy over to the window and raise his finger to the stars:

‘The stars are far away, Kolenka: it takes a pencil of rays more than two years to travel from the nearest star to the earth … that’s how it is, my boy!’ And then one day the tender father wrote his son a little poem:

Silly little simpleton

Kolenka is dancing:

He has put his dunce-cap on –

On his horse he’s prancing.

Thus once had the contours of the little tables emerged from the shadows, the rays of the embankment lights flown through from the window-pane: the incrustations of the little tables were beginning to shine.
Had the father really come to the conclusion that the blood of his blood was the blood of a scoundrel?
Did the son really laugh at old age?

Silly little simpleton

Kolenka is dancing:

He has put his dunce-cap on –

On his horse he’s prancing.