Petersburg (59 page)

It was getting dark: it was getting dark blue.

And in the darkening all, in the semi-gloom of the little study, the
person
’s jacket showed repulsively yellow; his square head was completely bowed down against the table (above his back only a dyed quiff was visible), presenting the broad, muscular back and a neck that was doubtless unwashed; the back somehow bulged as it presented itself to the gaze; and presented itself wrongly: not
decently, but … somehow … mockingly.
And from here it seemed to him that from in there, stoopingly bent, out of the semi-twilight of the little study, a shoulder and a back were bursting with insolence; and he mentally undressed them; fatty skin appeared, that could be sliced with the same ease as the skin of sucking-pig with horseradish sauce; a cockroach was crawling by (there were evidently large numbers of them here); he felt revolted: he – spat.

Suddenly a fatty fold of neck bulged out between the back and the nape of the neck in a faceless smile: as though a monster had settled down in the armchair there; and the neck looked like a face; as though what had settled down in the armchair was a monster with a noseless, eyeless mug; and the fold of neck looked like a toothlessly ripped-open mouth.

There, on bandy legs, a clumsy monster had fallen back unnaturally – in the semi-twilight of the room.

Ugh, what filth!

Aleksandr Ivanovich jerked his shoulder away and put his back to the back; he began to pluck his small moustache with an independent air; he would have liked to have looked offended, but looked merely independent; he plucked his small moustache with an air that said that he was one thing, and the back was another.
He would have liked to have gone out, slamming the door; but it was impossible to go out: Nikolai Apollonovich’s peace of mind depended on this conversation; and so: to go out, slamming the door, was out of the question; and so he was still dependent on the
person
.

Aleksandr Ivanovich, we have said, put his back to the back; but the back with the fold of neck was none the less a magnetic back; and he turned round to face it: he could not help doing so … At this point, the
person
, in his turn, turned sharply in his chair: the inclined, narrow-browed head stared steadily, resembling a wild boar, ready to sink its tusk into any pursuer whatever; turned, and again turned away.
The gesture that accompanied this turn cried eloquently aloud – with sheer desire to inflict an insult.
But the gesture expressed not only this.
The
person
must have noticed something in the gaze that was fixed on it, because the gaze of the small, blinking eyes said caustically:

‘Ah, ah, ah … So that’s the game, my good chap, is it?’

Aleksandr Ivanovich clenched his fist in his pocket.
And again turned away.

The hours were ticking.
Aleksandr Ivanovich grunted twice, so that his impatience would touch the
person
’s hearing (he must both stand up for himself and not insult the
person
too much; were he to insult the
person
, after all, Nikolai Apollonovich might suffer because of it) … But Aleksandr Ivanovich’s grunting came out sounding like the timid spasm of a preparatory form pupil before the teacher.
What had happened to him?
Where had this timidity come from?
He was not in the slightest afraid of the
person
: he was afraid of the hallucination that emerged back there, on the wallpaper – but as for the
person
…

The
person
went on writing.

Aleksandr Ivanovich grunted again.
And again.
This time the
person
responded.

‘You’ll have to wait …’

What kind of a tone was that?
What kind of dryness was that?

At last the
person
sat up slightly, and turned round; a heavy hand described a gesture of invitation in the air:

‘Now then, what can I do for you …’

Aleksandr Ivanovich seemed completely at a loss; his anger, which had passed all bounds, was expressed in a fidgety forgetting of commonly used words:

‘You see … I’ve … come …’

‘?’

‘As you know, or rather … What the devil!
…’ And suddenly he snapped out briefly:

‘There’s some business …’

But the
person
, having thrown himself back in his armchair (he was on the point of mercilessly strangling the
person
in that armchair), drummed a nibbled finger on the table with an annihilating look; and – hollowly boomed:

‘I must warn you … I have no time today to listen to wordy explanations.
And so …’

What was this?

‘So I would ask you, my dearest fellow, to express yourself as briefly and precisely as possible …’

And pressing his chin into his Adam’s apple, the
person
stared out
of the windows; and from there space, empty with light, threw rustling handfuls of its falling leaves.

‘But tell me, since when have you had this … tone,’ burst from Aleksandr Ivanovich not merely with irony, but even with a kind of bewilderment.

But the
person
interrupted him again; interrupted him in a most unpleasant manner:

‘Well, sir?’

And crossed his arms on his chest.

‘My business …’ and he faltered …

‘Well, sir …’

‘Has become very important …’

But the
person
interrupted a third time:

‘We shall discuss its degree of importance later.’

And screwed up his little eyes.

Aleksandr Ivanovich Dudkin, inexplicably bewildered, blushed and felt that he could no longer force out a sentence.
Aleksandr Ivanovich said nothing.

The
person
said nothing.

The falling leaves beat at the windows: the red leaves, knocking against the panes as they floated down, exchanged whispered secrets; there the branches – dry skeletons – formed a misty, blackish mesh; the wind was blowing in the street: the blackish mesh was beginning to sway; the blackish mesh was beginning to drone.
Incoherently, helplessly, getting mixed up in his expressions, Aleksandr Ivanovich gave an account of the Ableukhov incident.
But in the degree to which he became inspired by the story, overcoming the potholes in the structure of his discourse, the drier and more stern did the person become: the more impassively did his forehead protrude and then relax its wrinkles; the puffy little lips ceased sucking; and at the point in the story where Morkovin, the
agent provocateur
, appeared, the person jerked up his eyebrows and twitched his nose: as though until that point he had been trying to act on the narrator’s conscience, as though after that point the narrator had become totally without conscience, so that all the limits of the tolerance of which the
person
was capable were from that point on transgressed; and his patience finally snapped:

‘Eh?
… You see?
… And you said?
…’

Aleksandr Ivanovich started.

‘Say what?’

‘Nothing: continue.’

Aleksandr Ivanovich screamed in complete despair:

‘But I’ve said it all!
What more can I add?’

And, pressing his chin into his Adam’s apple, the person looked down, reddened, sighed, fixed a reproachful gaze on Aleksandr Ivanovich with eyes that were unblinking now (it was a sad gaze); and – whispered barely audibly:

‘Not good … Not good, not good at all … I wonder you are not ashamed!
…’

In the adjacent room Zoya Zakharovna appeared with a lamp; the maid, Malanya, was laying the table: and glasses were being set out; Mr Shishnarfiev appeared in the dining-room; his little tenor scattered like small glass beads, but all those beads were crushed by … the accent of a Young Persian; Shishnarfiev himself was concealed from view by a flower vase; all this Aleksandr Ivanovich noticed from afar, and – as if through a dream.

Aleksandr Ivanovich felt a tremor in his heart; and – horror; at the words ‘I wonder you are not ashamed’ he had felt his cheeks blush bright crimson; a manifest threat lurked banefully in the words of his fearsome interlocutor; Aleksandr Ivanovich began to squirm involuntarily in his seat, as he remembered something that he had not done and was not his fault at all.

It was strange: he did not dare to ask again what the hidden threat was in the
person
’s tone, and what he meant when he had used the word ‘ashamed’ in connection with him.
None the less, he swallowed this ‘ashamed’.

‘But what am I to tell Ableukhov about this
provocateur
’s letter?’

Here the frontal bones approached his forehead.

‘What do you mean –
provocateur
’s?
It wasn’t a
provocateur
’s letter at all … I must cool you down.
The letter to Ableukhov was written by myself.’

This tirade was pronounced with a dignity that had mastered anger, reproach and offence; that had mastered itself, and now condescended to … a disparaging meekness.

‘What?
The letter was written by you?’

‘And came – through you: do you remember?
… Or have you forgotten?’

The
person
pronounced the words ‘have you forgotten’ with an air that seemed to indicate that Aleksandr Ivanovich was perfectly well aware of all this, but was for some reason pretending not to be; in general, the
person
gave him plainly to understand that now he was going to play with his dissembling like a cat with a mouse …

‘Remember: I gave this letter to you back there – at the little inn …’

‘But I assure you that I gave it not to Ableukhov but to Varvara Yevgrafovna …’

‘That will do, Aleksandr Ivanovich, that will do, old chap: you don’t need to try to pull the wool over the eyes of your own people: the letter found its addressee … And the rest is subterfuge …’

‘And are you the author of the letter?’

Aleksandr Ivanovich’s heart was trembling and beating so hard that it seemed it might fall out; like a bull, it began to roar; and – rushed forward.

But the
person
tapped a finger meaningfully on the table, replacing his air of indifference with a granite-like firmness; the
person
shouted:

‘What do you find so surprising?
That I should have written the letter to Ableukhov?
…’

‘Of course …’

‘Forgive me, but I would say that your amazement borders on open dissembling …’

From behind the vase, over there, Shishnarfiev’s black profile thrust itself forward; Zoya Zakharovna began to whisper to the profile, but the profile merely nodded its head; and then stared at Aleksandr Ivanovich.
But Aleksandr Ivanovich saw nothing.
He only exclaimed, rushing over to the
person
:

‘Either I have gone mad, or – you have!’

The person winked at him:

‘Well?’

While his air said:

‘Ah, ah, ah, my good chap: I saw you watching us earlier … Do you think you can fool me?
…’

Something happened: cheerfully, even somehow merrily, even with a kind of half-baked ardour, the
person
clicked his tongue, as though he wanted to exclaim:

‘But my good chap, the baseness really is with you – only with you; not with me.’

But all he said was:

‘Eh?
… Eh?
…’

Then, making it look as though he had with difficulty suppressed his sardonic laughter, the
person
sternly, imposingly, condescendingly placed his heavy hand on Aleksandr Ivanovich’s shoulder.
Reflected, and added:

‘Not good … Not good, not good at all.’

And that same strange, oppressive and familiar state of mind seized hold of Aleksandr Ivanovich: a sense of doom before a piece of dark yellow wallpaper on which – in a moment – something fateful would appear.
At this point Aleksandr Ivanovich felt the ineffable sense of guilt behind him; he looked, and it was as if a cloud were hanging over him, smoking around him from where the
person
was sitting, and smoking out of the
person
.

But the
person
was staring at him with his narrow-browed head; sitting there, and repeating:

‘Not good …’

A painful silence ensued.

‘Actually, of course, I am still waiting for the proper evidence; one cannot proceed without evidence … But actually: the accusation is a serious one; the accusation, I shall tell you plainly, is so serious that …’ – here the person sighed.

‘But what evidence?’

‘I do not want to judge you personally for the time being … We in the Party act, as you know, on the basis of facts … And the facts, the facts …’

‘But what facts?’

‘Facts about you are being gathered …’

That was all he needed!

Getting up from the armchair, the
person
cut off the tip of a Havana cigar and began ambiguously to hum a little tune; now he was imperviously enclosed in his fragrance; strode into the dining-room, and amiably gripped Shishnarfiev by the shoulder.

Shouted in the direction of the kitchen, from where there was such a tasty smell of roast meat.

‘I’m dying for a bite to eat …’

Surveyed the table and observed:

‘I’d like a liqueur …’

Then he strode back into the little study.

‘Your visits to the yardkeeper’s lodge … Your friendship with the house police, with the yardkeeper … And finally: your drinking bouts with the police clerk Voronkov …’

And in response to a questioning, bewildered gaze – a gaze full of horror – Lippanchenko, the
person
, that is, continued a caustic, many-meaninged whisper, placing his hand on Aleksandr Ivanovich’s shoulder.

‘As if you yourself didn’t know!
Looking surprised like that!
You mean you know who Voronkov is?’

‘Voronkov?
Voronkov?!
… Wait … what about it … What’s going on here?
…’

But the
person
, Lippanchenko, roared with laughter, holding his sides:

‘You don’t know?
…’

‘I won’t assert that: I know …’

‘Splendid!
…’

‘Voronkov is a clerk from the police station: he visits the house of yardkeeper Matvei Morzhov …’