Petersburg (27 page)

Had this happened?
Perhaps it had not … anywhere, ever?

Both now sat on the satin drawing-room couch, in order aimlessly to drawl insignificant words: they looked intently and expectantly into each other’s eyes, and the red flame from the hearth breathed warmth on to them both; shaven, grey and old, Apollon Apollonovich stood out, ears and jacket, against the twinkling flame: it was with just such a face as this that he had been depicted against a background of burning Russia on the cover of a little street journal.
Extending a dead hand and not looking his son in the eye, Apollon Apollonovich asked in a failing voice:

‘My friend, does that that … mm … that, er … visit you often?’

‘Who, Papa?’

‘Oh that fellow, what’s his name … the young man …’

‘A young man?’

‘Yes – with a small black moustache.’

Nikolai Apollonovich bared his teeth in a grin, and suddenly began to wring his sweaty hands …

‘You mean the fellow you found in my study today?’

‘Why yes – the very same …’

‘Aleksandr Ivanovich Dudkin!
… No … You don’t say so …’

And having said ‘You don’t say so’, Nikolai Apollonovich reflected:

‘Well, why did I say “You don’t say so”?’

And, having reflected, added:

‘He just comes to visit me.’

‘If … if … this is an indiscreet question, then … I suppose …’

‘What, Papa?
…’

‘He came to you on … university business?’

‘Though actually … if my question is, so to speak, out of place …’

‘Why out of place?’

‘He’s not a bad sort … a pleasant young man: poor, as one can see …’

‘Is he a student?’

‘Yes, he is.’

‘At the university?’

‘Yes, that’s right …’

‘Not the technical institute?
…’

‘No, Papa …’

Apollon Apollonovich knew that his son was lying; Apollon Apollonovich looked at his watch; Apollon Apollonovich got up, indecisively.
Nikolai Apollonovich was tormentingly aware of his arms, and Apollon Apollonovich’s eyes began to roam in confusion:

‘Yes, that’s right … There are many special branches of knowledge
in the world: every specialism is profound – you are right.
You know, Kolenka, I’m tired.’

Apollon Apollonovich was trying to ask his son, who was rubbing his hands, about something … He stood for a bit, looked for a bit, and … did not ask, but lowered his eyes: for a moment Nikolai Apollonovich felt shame.

Mechanically Apollon Apollonovich extended his pudgy lips to his dear offspring: and his hand shook … two fingers.

‘Good night, Papa!’

‘My respects, sir!’

Somewhere to the side a mouse began to shuffle, to rustle, and suddenly squeaked.

Soon the door of the senator’s study opened: holding a candle, Apollon Apollonovich ran into a certain room that had no comparison, in order to devote himself to … reading the newspaper.

Nikolai Apollonovich went over to the window.

Some kind of phosphorescent stain was racing both mistily and furiously across the sky; the distances of the Neva were misted over by a phosphorescent sheen, and this made the soundlessly flying surfaces begin to gleam green, giving off now there, now here a spark of gold; here and there on the water a tiny red light would flare up and, having blinked, retreat into the phosphorescently extended murk.
Beyond the Neva, showing dark, the massive buildings of the islands rose, casting into the mists their palely shining eyes – infinitely, soundlessly, tormentingly: and they seemed to be weeping.
Higher up, ragged arms furiously extended some kind of vague outlines; swarm upon swarm they rose above the Neva’s waves; while from the sky the phosphorescent stain hurled itself upon them.
Only in one place that had not been touched by chaos – there, where by day the Troitsky Bridge was thrown across – enormous clusters of diamonds showed misty above a glittering swarm of annulated, luminous serpents; both twining and untwining, the serpents sped from there in a sparkling file; and then, diving down, rose to the surface like strings of stars.

Nikolai Apollonovich was lost in contemplation of the strings.

The embankment was empty.
From time to time the black shadow of a policeman passed, looming black against the light mist and dissolving again; they loomed black and disappeared in the mist, the buildings on the other side of the Neva; and the spire of the Peter and Paul Fortress loomed black and again retreated into the mist.

Some kind of female shadow had long now loomed black against the mist: standing by the railings, it did not retreat into the mist but stared straight at the windows of a yellow house.
Nikolai Apollonovich smiled a most unpleasant smile: applying his pince-nez to his nose, he studied the shadow; Nikolai Apollonovich’s eyes bulged with amorous cruelty, as he stared and stared at that shadow; joy distorted his features.

No, no: it was not she; but she too, like that shadow, kept walking and walking round the yellow house; and he saw her; everything in his soul was troubled.
She loved him, without doubt; but a fateful and terrible vengeance awaited her.

The black, fortuitous shadow had already dissolved in the mist.

In the depths of the dark corridor a metal bolt rattled, in the depths of the dark corridor light flickered: holding a candle, Apollon Apollonovich was returning from a certain place that had no comparison: his grey, mouse-coloured dressing-gown, his grey, shaven cheeks and the enormous contours of his completely dead ears were sculpted from afar in the dancing lamps.
Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov walked to the door of his study in order to sink back into complete darkness; and the place of his passage yawned gloomily, from the open door.

Nikolai Apollonovich thought: ‘It’s time.’

Nikolai Apollonovich knew that the mass meeting today would last until late at night, that
she
was going to the meeting (the guarantee of this was the fact that Varvara Yevgrafovna was
accompanying
her: Varvara Yevgrafovna took everyone to the meetings).
Nikolai Apollonovich reflected that more than two hours had already passed since he met them, on the way to the
gloomy building
; and now he thought: ‘
It’s time
…’

The Mass Meeting

In the spacious vestibule of the gloomy building there was a desperate crush.

The crush carried Angel Peri, swaying her back and forth between someone’s back and chest, and she made desperate efforts to stretch out her hands to Varvara Yevgrafovna: but Varvara Yevgrafovna, who could not hear, was somewhere over there, flailing, struggling, pushing; and then she suddenly vanished in the crush; along with her vanished the chance to question her about the letter.
What need had she of the letter!
In her eyes the stains of the sunset still shone crimson; and there, there: somehow strangely turned towards her on the front square of the palace in the light crimson glow of the last rays of the Neva, stooping, hiding his face in his collar, stood Nikolai Apollonovich with a most unpleasant smile.
No!
In any case he cut a rather ridiculous figure: looked round-shouldered and somehow lacking arms with that wing of his overcoat that was so preposterously dancing in the wind; she felt like crying from deep offence, as though he had struck her painfully with a small silver whip, that same silver whip which the dark, striped bulldog carried in its teeth, snorting; she wanted her husband, Sergei Sergeich Likhutin, to go up to that scoundrel and suddenly strike him in the face with a cypress fist and say, apropos of this, his officer’s word; in her eyes the small clouds of the Neva still fleeted like fine impressions of broken mother-of-pearl, between which evenly poured the turquoise all.

But in the crush the most delicate reflections died, from all sides chests, backs and faces came surging, a black darkness into a foggy yellowish murk.

And the individuals kept barging and barging, the shaggy hats and the young ladies: body barged into body; nose flattened against back; the small head of a pretty female gymnasium pupil squeezed against one’s chest, while at one’s feet a second-form boy cheeped;
under pressure from behind, an outrageously extended nose was pierced by a hat-pin, and there too a chest was threatened with puncture by the perforatingly sharp angle of an elbow; there was nowhere to take one’s coat off; steam hung in the air, illumined by candles (as it proved later, the electricity suddenly broke down – the electric power station had evidently begun to get up to mischief: soon it would get up to mischief for a long time).

And everyone barged, everyone struggled: of course, Sofya Petrovna got stuck for a long time at the foot of the staircase, but Varvara Yevgrafovna fought her way out, of course, and was now pushing, struggling and beating somewhere high up at the top of the staircase; some kind of highly respectable Jew in a lambskin hat, with spectacles and very grey hair had fought his way out together with her: swinging round to face backwards, in utter horror he pulled his own coat by the skirts; and could not pull it free; failing to do so, he started to shout:

‘A fine public; not a public, but a
schweinerei
!
A R-russian
schweinerei
!
…’

‘Vell, and what are you up to, vy are you in our R-r-assia?’ was heard from somewhere below.

This was a Bundist-socialist
¹⁹
Jew arguing with a Jew who was not a Bundist, but was a socialist.

In the hall body sat upon body, body pressed against body; and the bodies swayed; they were agitated and shouted to one another that in this place and that place and that place there was a strike, that in this place and that place and that place a strike was in preparation, that people were going to strike – in this place, in this place and this place: were going to strike right here, in this very place: and – not to budge!

First a party worker from the intelligentsia spoke about this, and then a student repeated the same thing after him; after the student a
coursiste
; after the
coursiste
a class-conscious proletarian, but when a non-class-conscious proletarian tried to repeat the same thing, a representative of the lumpen proletariat began to trumpet to the whole hall, as out of a barrel, in such a great, thick voice that everyone started:

‘Com … rradds!
… I’m a poor man – a prrroletarian, com … rrraddds!
…’

Thunderous applause.

‘Yes, com … rradds!
… And that means that this is government … tyranny … yes!
yes!
I’m a poor man, and I say: strr-ike, comrradds!’

Thunderous applause (True!
True!
Stop him speaking!
It’s an outrage, ladies and gentlemen!
He’s drunk!).

‘No, I’m not drunk, com-rradds!
… And that means that this bourgeoisie … how can you work, work … One single word; grab his legs and into the water with him; that’s to say … strike!’

(Blow of fist on table: thunderous applause).

But the chairman stopped the worker from speaking any more.

The best speaker of all was the respected collaborator on a certain respected newspaper, Neintelpfain: he spoke, and at once vanished.
Some kind of little boy made an attempt to proclaim a boycott from the top of the four steps of the rostrum: but the little boy was laughed down; was it worth bothering with nonsense like this when there were strikes in this place and that place and that place, when there was a strike right here – and not to budge?
And the little boy, almost weeping, came down from the top of the four steps of the rostrum; and then a sixty-five-year-old female
zemstvo
official mounted those steps and told the assembly:

Sow the useful, the good, the eternal,

Sow, and the Russian people will give you a heartfelt

Thank you!
²⁰

But the sowers laughed.
Then someone suddenly proposed the destruction of everyone and everything: he was a mystical anarchist.
²¹
Sofya Petrovna did not hear the anarchist, but was pressed back, and it was a strange thing: Varvara Yevgrafovna had explained to Sofya Petrovna more than once that at mass meetings the useful and the good were sown, which deserved a hearty
thank you
on her part.
But oh no, oh no!
They all laughed wildly at the old female official of sixty-five who told them the same thing (about sowing); for then why had the seed not sprouted in her little heart?
What had grown, obscurely, were some kind of nettles; and her little head ached dreadfully; whether because she had seen him before, whether because she had such a tiny forehead, or whether because some kind of possessed individuals were staring at her from all sides,
individuals who had gone on strike in this place and that place, and had now come to go on strike here, to stare at her out of the yellow, foggy murk, to bare their teeth in loud laughter.
And this chaos awoke within her an anger that was incomprehensible even to herself; after all, she was a lady, and one ought not to arouse chaos in ladies; this chaos concealed all kinds of cruelties, crimes, falls; in every lady at that time a criminal lurked; something criminal had long lurked within her.

Now she was approaching the corner together with an officer who was walking with her, whom people regarded with a smile, whispering condescendingly to one other, and who suddenly took offence at the boycott that had been declared by the little boy, and offended, quickly walked away – she was approaching the corner, and as she did so a detachment of Cossacks flew out in front of her at full gallop from the gateway of the house next door on their unkempt horses; blue bearded men in tall, shaggy Astrakhan hats and with rifles at the ready, real ragamuffins, dancing brazenly, mutely, impatiently in their saddles – there, to the building.
Seeing this, some sort of worker came running towards the officer from the corner, stretched out his hand to him and began to say, panting:

‘Mr Officer, Mr Officer!’

‘Sorry, I’ve no small change …’

‘Oh, that’s not what I want: what’s going to happen there now?
… What’s going to happen?
… Those defenceless young ladies there – the
coursistes
…’