Petersburg (78 page)

And on the shaven, crimson face played:

‘?

‘!

‘!?!’

An utter madman!

But it was a strange thing: Nikolai Apollonovich listened closely to this utter raving; and something inside him quivered: was this really raving?
It was rather hints, incoherently uttered; but hints – at what?
Were they hints at … at … at …?

Yes, yes, yes …

‘Sergei Sergeyevich, what
is
all this about?’

And his heart sank: Nikolai Apollonovich felt that his skin did not enwrap his body, but … a heap of cobblestones; instead of a brain he had a cobblestone; and there was a cobblestone in his stomach.

‘What is it about?
… Why, the bomb, of course …’ – Sergei Sergeyevich retreated two paces, astonished in the extreme.

The paperweight fell from Ableukhov’s unclenched fist; an instant before, it had seemed to Nikolai Apollonovich that his skin wrapped not his body, but – a heap of cobblestones; but now the horrors passed all bounds; he felt something cutting into the heavy masses of quintillions (between the zeros and the unit); the unit remained.

While the quintillion became – zero.

The heavy masses suddenly burst into flames: the cobblestones that crammed his body, becoming gases, spurted in the twinkling of an eye through the orifices of all the pores of his skin, and wound again the spirals of events, but wound them in reverse order; they twisted his body itself into a receding spiral; thus the very sense of
his body became – a
zero
sensation; the contours of his features were traced sharply and acquired an incredible degree of meaning, revealing in the young man the face of a patriarch in his sixties; were sharply traced, acquired meaning, became as if carved; the face – white, pale white – became a luminescent countenance, bathed in luminescent boiling water; while, on the other hand: the face of the second lieutenant turned a bright carrot colour; his shavenness made him look even more stupid, while his little too-tight jacket became even smaller and tighter …

‘Sergei Sergeyevich, I am surprised at you … How could you believe that I, that I … ascribe to me consent to an act of dreadful villainy … While I am – not a villain … I, Sergei Sergeyevich – do not think I am yet an out-and-out scoundrel …’

Nikolai Apollonovich was evidently unable to continue; and he – turned away; having turned away, he turned round again …

Out of the shadowy corner, as though it had swarmed into shape, emerged the proud, bent and round-shouldered figure that consisted, or so it appeared to the second lieutenant, of nothing but flowing radiances – with a martyred, grinning mouth, with eyes of cornflower hue; his flaxen-white hair, bathed in light, formed a transparent, almost halo-like circle above his gleaming, ultra-high brow; he stood with his palms raised aloft, indignant, insulted, magnificent, somehow raised on the blood-red background of the wallpaper: the wallpaper was red.

He stood – his muffler dangling from his neck and only one coattail: the other had – alas – been torn off …

Thus he stood: from the enormous hollows of his eyes a cold, enormous emptiness stared incessantly at the second lieutenant; adhered and chilled to ice; here second lieutenant Likhutin somehow felt that for all his physical strength and health (he thought he was healthy) and, moreover, his nobleness of character – he was only a looming phantom; so that Ableukhov had only to approach the second lieutenant with that scintillant aspect, and the second lieutenant, Sergei Sergeyevich, began manifestly to retreat from him.

‘But I believe you, I believe you,’ he said, beginning to flap his hands in bewilderment.

‘Look, you see’ – now he was really embarrassed – ‘I was never in any doubt … Actually, I feel ashamed … I am agitated … My wife told me … She had this note slipped into her hands … She read it – of course, she opened it by mistake,’ he lied for some reason, and blushed, and lowered his eyes …

‘Once the note was opened, and I could read it’ – the senator’s son seized maliciously on this opportunity – ‘then …’ he shrugged his shoulders, ‘then Sofya Petrovna was, of course, entitled (here there was a note of irony) to tell you, as her husband, its contents’ – Nikolai Apollonovich muttered in a most haughty manner; and – continued to advance.

‘I … I … lost my temper,’ said Likhutin in self-defence: his gaze fell on the ill-fated coat-tail, and he seized hold of the coat-tail.

‘Don’t worry about this coat-tail: I will sew it back on myself …’

But Nikolai Apollonovich, his mouth just, just barely smiling – luminescent, elegant – reproachfully continued to shake his hands in the air:

‘You knew not what you did.’

His dark cornflower, dark blue eyes and light-bathed hair expressed a dim, unutterable sadness:

‘Then go: inform on me, do not believe me!
…’

And turned away …

The broad shoulders began to move jerkily … Nikolai Apollonovich wept unrestrainedly; at the same time: Nikolai Apollonovich, freed from his rude, animal fear, became altogether fearless; and what was more: at that moment he even wanted to suffer; thus at least did he feel at that moment: felt like a hero given up to torment, suffering publicly and shamefully; his body was in its sensations a tortured body; while his feelings were as torn as his very ‘I’ was torn; but from the tearing of his ‘I’ – so he expected – a blinding torch would flash and a familiar voice would speak to him from there, as always – speak within him: for him alone:

‘You have suffered for me: I am standing over you.’

But there was no voice.
Nor was there any torch.
There was – darkness.
The feeling itself had probably arisen from the fact that only now had he understood: from the encounter on the Neva until
this most recent moment he had been undeservedly insulted; he had been brought here by force, been hauled – dragged into the little study; and here, in the little study, the tail had been torn off his frock-coat; why, even as it was, he had suffered ceaselessly for twenty-four hours: so why on top of that must he experience terror in the face of insults inflicted by action?
Why was there no reconciling voice saying ‘You have suffered for me’?
Because he had not suffered for anyone: had suffered for himself … Had, so to speak, reaped the consequences of the mess he himself had made from outrageous events.
That was why there was no voice.
And why there was no torch.
In the place of his former ‘I’ there was darkness.
That he could not endure: his broad shoulders began to move jerkily.

He turned away: he wept.

‘Truly,’ he heard behind his back, in a tone both reconciling and meek, ‘I was mistaken, did not understand …’

There was in this voice none the less a shade of vexation: of shame and … vexation: and Sergei Sergeyevich stood painfully biting his lip; perhaps the newly reconciled Likhutin was now regretting that he had been mistaken, that now he could not strike his enemy dead: neither with his fist, nor with nobility; precisely thus does a mad bull, teased by a red handkerchief, rush at his adversary and – attack the iron bars of the cage: and stand, and bellow, and not know what to do.
The second lieutenant’s face displayed the struggle of unpleasant memories (the domino, of course) and most noble feelings; while his adversary, still with his back turned and weeping, kept saying unpleasantly, over and over again:

‘Taking advantage of your physical superiority, you have … dragged me in the presence of a lady, like … like …’

The rush of most noble feelings got the upper hand; Sergei Sergeich Likhutin crossed the little study with outstretched hand; but Nikolai Apollonovich, turning (a tear trembled on his eyelid), in a voice that was choked by the frenzy that had seized him and – alas!
– by a self-respect that had arrived too late, articulated jerkily:

‘Like … like … a chicken in the yard …’

Had Nikolai Apollonovich stretched out his hand to him, Sergei
Sergeich would have considered himself the happiest of men: complete contentment would have played over his face; but the rush of noble feeling, just like the rush of frenzy, was immediately corked up within his soul; the rush of noble feeling fell into empty darkness.

‘Did you want to make sure, Sergei Sergeyevich?
… That I am not a father-murderer?
… No, Sergei Sergeyevich, no: you should have thought of it earlier … You just hauled me like … like a chicken in the yard.
And – tore off my coat-tail …’

‘The coat-tail can be sewn back on again!’

And before Ableukhov had time to regain his wits, Sergei Sergeyevich rushed to the door:

‘Mavrushka!
… Black thread!
… A needle …’

But the opened door very nearly struck Sofya Petrovna, who was just then eavesdropping on the other side of it; caught in the act, she jumped aside, but – too late: caught in the act, and red as a peony, she had nowhere to run; and at them – at them both – she threw an indignant, annihilating gaze.

Between the three of them lay the tail of the frock-coat.

‘What?
… Sonechka …’

‘Sofya Petrovna!
…’

‘Have I disturbed you?
…’

‘Just imagine … Nikolai Apollonovich … You know … tore off his coat-tail … He ought to …’

‘No, don’t trouble yourself, Sergei Sergeich; Sofya Petrovna – please …’

‘He ought to have it sewn back on.’

But Nikolai Apollonovich, his mouth twisted because of the stupid situation, wiping the tell-tale eyelashes with his sleeve and still limping on one leg, had already made his appearance in the room with the Fujiyamas … in a torn frock-coat, with one dangling tail; lifting up his Italian cloak, he raised his head and, seeing the damage that had been done to the ceiling, turned his twisted mouth, for the sake of propriety, towards Sofya Petrovna.

‘Tell me, Sofya Petrovna, there seems to be some kind of change in your flat: in your ceiling there is some kind of … Some kind of disrepair: have painters been working?’

But Sergei Sergeyevich interrupted:

‘That was me, Nikolai Apollonovich … I … was mending the ceiling …’

But all the while he was thinking:

‘What?
how do you like that: last night I didn’t hang myself properly; and now I haven’t explained myself properly …’

Nikolai Apollonovich, leaving, limped across the hall; falling from his shoulder, his fantastic cape trailed after him like a black train.

From behind the nota benes, the exclamation marks, the section marks, the dashes, from behind what was now the
final
work the bald head raised itself; and – fell back again.
The fire-breathing heap – crimson, golden – began to seethe and snort, giving off seething cracklings and gleamings; the logs were scattered with coals, – and the bald head rose towards the fireplace with a sardonically smiling mouth and screwed-up eyes; suddenly the lips straightened in alarm.

What was this?

In all directions red, seething torches unwound – throbbing lights and streaming deer’s antlers: they began to branch out and lick from every side – tree-like, golden, transparent; they were hurled one by one out of the red crater of the fireplace; were hurled at the walls: the fireplace fleeted and expanded, turning into a stone, dungeon-like sack, where they froze (now stood up, now died away), all the flowing radiances, the flames, the dark-cornflower-coloured carbon gases and combs: in light made transparent – there a figure swarmed together, raised slightly beneath the receding vault and stoopingly extended; the red, five-pawed hands stretched out – scorching with the touch of the fire.

What was this?

– Here was the martyred, grinning mouth, here were the eyes of cornflower hue, here was the hair bathed in light: enwrapped in the fury of the fire, with arms spread wide, nailed by sparks in the air, with palms upturned in the air – palms, that were pierced through, –

Nikolai Apollonovich, spread out in the shape of a cross, was suffering there out of the radiance of the light and indicating with his eyes the red sores on his palms; while from the sundered heavens the cool, broad-winged archangel poured dew for him – into the red-hot furnace …

‘He knows not what he does …’

Suddenly … a dizzying crack, a hissing, a snorting: the bright radiances, suddenly hesitating, exploded into pieces, sweeping the martyred figure away in cascades of sparks.

A quarter of an hour later he gave instructions for the horses to be harnessed; forty minutes later he strode forth into the carriage (this we saw in the previous chapter); an hour later the carriage stood amidst the festive crowd; and – was it only festive?
…

Something had happened here.

A space of less than an inch, or the wall of the carriage, separated Apollon Apollonovich from the rebellious crowed; the horses snorted, and through the panes of the carriage Apollon Apollonovich could see nothing but heads: bowlers, service caps and, above all, Manchurian fur hats; saw a pair of staring, indignant eyes fixed on him; saw too the contorted mouth of a ragged fellow; a singing mouth (they were singing).
Seeing Ableukhov, the ragged fellow shouted coarsely:

‘Get out, hey, look: you can’t drive through here.’

The voices of other ragged fellows joined the ragged fellow’s voice.

Then Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov, in order to avoid unpleasantness, was obliged by the crowd to open the door of his carriage; the ragged fellows caught sight of the old man climbing out with lip a-tremble, holding on to the edge of his top hat with his glove: Apollon Apollonovich saw before him bawling mouths and a tall flagstaff: tearing themselves away from the wooden staff like crests in the air, lightly-whistling blades of red calico cloth exploded, fluttered and tore – splashing into the void;

‘Hey, you, take your hat off!’

Apollon Apollonovich removed his top hat and quickly began to squeeze his way towards the pavement, abandoning carriage and driver; soon he was mincing in a contrary direction to the swarming mass; here small black figures flowed one by one out of the shops,
the courtyards, the side prospects, the inns; Apollon Apollonovich strained himself to the point of exhaustion: and – found his way into the empty side prospects, from which … flew … Cossacks …