Petersburg (85 page)

Tottering, he went out.

The father looked at the happy mother in surprise.

‘To tell you the truth, I didn’t recognize him … These, these … These, so to speak, feelings,’ – Apollon Apollonovich ran over from the mirror to the window-sill … ‘These, these … paroxysms,’ – and patted his side-whiskers.

‘They show,’ – he turned sharply, and raised the toes of his shoes, balancing for a moment on his heels, and then leaning with his whole body on the toes as they fell to the floor –

‘They show,’ – he said, putting his hands behind his back (under his little jacket) and turning them behind his back (making the little jacket begin to wag); and it looked as though Apollon Apollonovich were running about the drawing-room with a little wagging tail:

‘They show that he has a naturalness of feeling and, so to speak’ – here he shrugged his shoulders for a moment – ‘good qualities of character …

‘I never expected it at all …’

A snuffbox that was lying on the little table struck the attention of the renowned statesman; and wishing to impart to it a more symmetrical aspect in relation to the little tray that was lying there, Apollon Apollonovich very quickly walked up to that little table and snatched … from the tray a visiting card, which for some reason he began to turn between his fingers; his absent-mindedness proceeded from the fact that he had at that moment been struck by a profound thought, which was unfolding into a receding labyrinth of some kind of subsidiary discoveries.
But Anna Petrovna, who was sitting in her armchair with a look of blissful bewilderment, observed with conviction:

‘I always said …’

‘Yes, dear, thou know …’

Apollon Apollonovich rose on tiptoe with his little jacket tail slightly raised; and – ran from the little table to the mirror:

‘You know …’

Apollon Apollonovich ran from the mirror into the corner:

‘Kolenka has surprised me: and I must admit – this behaviour of his has reassured me’ – he creased his forehead – ‘in relation to … in relation to,’ – took his hand from behind his back (the edge of the little jacket was lowered), and drummed his hand on the table:

‘M-yes!
…’

Sharply interrupted himself:

‘It’s nothing.’

And fell into reflection: looked at Anna Petrovna; met her gaze; they smiled at each another.

And a Roulade Thundered

Nikolai Apollonovich went into his room; stared at the upturned Arabian stool: followed with his eyes the incrustation of ivory and mother-of-pearl.
Slowly he went over to the window: there the river flowed; and a boat rocked on it; and the tide splashed; from the drawing-room, somewhere in the distance, peals of roulades filled the silence of the room; thus had she played in the old days:
and to these sounds, once upon a time, had he fallen asleep over his books.

Nikolai Apollonovich stood over the heap of objects, thinking in agony:

‘But where is it … How can it be … Where on earth did I put it?’

And – could not remember.

Shadows, shadows and shadows: the armchairs showed green from the shadows; a bust emerged from the shadows over there: of Kant, of course.

At this point he noticed on the table a sheet of paper that had been folded in four: people who do not find the master of the house at home generally leave sheets of paper folded in four on the table; mechanically he took the piece of paper; mechanically he saw the handwriting – it was familiar, Likhutin’s.
Yes – that was it: he had completely forgotten that in his absence, this morning, Likhutin had been here: had dug and rummaged (he himself had spoken of it during the unpleasant meeting) …

Yes, yes, yes – he had ransacked the room.

A sigh of relief escaped from Nikolai Apollonovich’s breast.
All was instantly explained: Likhutin!
Well – of course, of course; he had quite certainly rummaged around here; had sought and found; and, having found, taken away; had seen the open desk; and had glanced into it; the sardine tin had caught his attention with its weight, its appearance, and its clock mechanism; the second lieutenant had taken the sardine tin away.
There was no doubt.

With relief, he lowered himself into an armchair; just then the silence was filled again by peals of roulades; thus it had been in the old days: roulades had come from there; nine years ago; and ten years ago: Anna Petrovna had played Chopin (not Schumann).
And it seemed to him now that there had not been any events, since it had all been explained so simply: the sardine tin had been taken away by second lieutenant Likhutin (who else could it have been, unless one assumed, but … – why assume it?); Aleksandr Ivanovich would do his best about all the rest (during these hours, let us remember, Aleksandr Ivanovich Dudkin was having his explanation with Lippanchenko, now lately deceased); no, there had been no events.

There, outside the windows, Petersburg pursued and chased with its cerebral play and tearful spaciousness; there rushed onslaughts of wet, cold wind; enormous clusters of diamonds showed mistily there – beneath the bridge.
No one – nothing.

And the river flowed; and the tide splashed; and the boat rocked; and a roulade thundered.

On the other side of the Neva’s waters colossi arose – in the outlines of islands and houses; and cast amber eyes into the mists; and they seemed to be weeping.
A row of shore lamps dropped fiery tears into the Neva: the surface burned with seething flashes of radiance.

A Watermelon is a Vegetable …

After two and a half years the three of them dined together.

The cuckoo on the wall cuckooed; the lackey brought in a steaming soup tureen; Anna Petrovna shone with contentment; Apollon Apollonovich … – incidentally: looking at the decrepit old man only this morning, you would not have recognized this ageless statesman, who had suddenly straightened up in his bearing, had sat down here at the table and taken a napkin with a kind of springy movement; they were sitting at soup, when a side door opened: Nikolai Apollonovich, lightly powdered, clean shaven, trim, hobbled along from it and joined the family in a tightly buttoned student’s frock-coat with a collar of the most elevated proportions (resembling the collars of the Alexandrine epoch, now past).

‘What is the matter,
mon cher
?’ Anna Petrovna asked, throwing her pince-nez on to her nose in an affected manner.
‘You are limping, I see?’

‘Eh?
…’ Apollon Apollonovich cast a glance at Kolenka and seized the pepper-pot.
‘Indeed …’

With a kind of youthful movement he proceeded to overpepper his soup.

‘It’s nothing,
maman
: I stumbled … and now my knee aches …’

‘Shouldn’t you put Goulard water on it?’

‘Indeed, Kolenka,’ Apollon Apollonovich said, bringing a spoonful
of soup to his mouth, and looking from under his brows, ‘these bruises of the knee joint are not to be trifled with; these bruises can play up …’

And – swallowed the spoonful of soup.

‘Maternal feeling is a remarkable thing’ – and Anna Petrovna put her spoon on her plate, and her large, childlike eyes stared as she pressed her head into her neck (making her double chin rise from under her collar) – ‘a remarkable thing: he is already grown-up, and yet I still worry about him as before …’

She appeared quite naturally to have forgotten that for two and a half years she had not troubled about Kolenka at all: Kolenka’s place had been taken by a stranger, swarthy and long-moustached, with eyes like two black prunes; naturally – she had forgotten just over two years ago she had used to tie this stranger’s necktie, there in Spain, every day: a violet one, made of silk; and every morning for two and a half years she had given him a laxative – Hunyadi – Janos.

‘Yes, maternal feeling: you remember – when you had dysent
ai
ry …’ (she said ‘dysent
ai
ry’).

‘Of course, I remember perfectly … You mean the slices of bread?’

‘That’s right …’

‘It would appear,
mon ami,
that you are suffering from the consequences of dysenter
y
right now?’ – Apollon Apollonovich muttered from his plate, placing a stress on the final y.

And swallowed a mouthful of soup.

‘It’s not good … for you … to eat berries at such a time, sir,’ the content voice of Semyonych was heard to say from behind the door; his head peeped through: he was looking from over there – was not serving.

‘Berries, berries!’ Apollon Apollonovich boomed in a bass voice and suddenly turned right round to face Semyonych: or rather, to the chink in the door.

‘Berries.’ And began to chew his lips.

Here the lackey who was serving (not Semyonych) smiled in anticipation, looking as though he wanted to announce to them all:

‘Something special is on its way!’

And the
barin
screamed.

‘Tell me, Semyonych: is a watermelon a berry?’

Anna Petrovna turned only her eyes towards Kolenka: condescendingly and slyly she concealed a smile; transferred her eyes to the senator, who had frozen in the direction of the door and had, it seemed, completely withdrawn into expectation of an answer to his absurd question; with her eyes she said:

‘Is he still up to his old games?’

Nikolai Apollonovich embarrassedly grasped for his knife and fork until, impassively and distinctly, a voice darted out, not surprised by the question:

‘A watermelon, your excellency, is not a berry at all, it’s a vegetable.’

Apollon Apollonovich quickly turned right round, and suddenly fired off – ai, ai, ai!
– his impromptu:

Correctly, Semyonych,

You old curd bread, –

You’ve worked this out

With your bald-topped head.

Anna Petrovna and Kolenka did not raise their eyes from their plates: in a word, it was – like the old days!

After the scene in the drawing-room Apollon Apollonovich showed them by his appearance: everything had now returned to normal; with appetite he ate, joked and attentively listened to the stories about the beauties of Spain; something strange and melancholy rose in his heart; as though there were no time; and as though it had all happened yesterday (Kolenka thought): he, Nikolai Apollonovich, was five years old; attentively he listened to the conversations his mother had with the governess (the one Apollon Apollonovich had shown the door); and Anna Petrovna – exclaimed ecstatically:

‘Zizi and I; and behind us again there will be
two tails
; we’ll go to the exhibition; with our
tails
behind us, to the exhibition …’

‘No, what brazenry!’

Kolenka saw before him an enormous room, a crowd, the rustle of dresses and so on (he had once been taken to an exhibition): and
in the distance, hanging suspended in space, enormous, black-brown
tails
floating out of the crowd: as a child, Nikolai Apollonovich had never been able to understand that Countess Zizi called her social admirers
tails.

But this absurd memory of tails hanging suspended in space provoked within him a suppressed sense of alarm; he must go and see the Likhutins: make sure that it was really …

That what was ‘really’?

In his ears he kept hearing the ticking of a watch: ticky-tock, ticky-tock; the hand ran round in a circle; only of course it did not run here – in these gleaming rooms (under a rug, for example, where any of them might accidentally place a foot on it …), but – in a black cesspool, in a field, in a river: kept up its ‘ti-cky-tock’; the hand ran round in a circle – until the fateful hour …

What nonsense!

All this came from the senator’s dreadful joke, which was a truly grand one … in its tastelessness; everything had come from that: the memory of the black-brown tails, floating out of space, and – the memory of the bomb.

‘What is it, Kolenka, you seem distracted: and you’re not eating your cream?
…’

‘Ah, yes-yes …’

After dinner he strolled through this unlighted hall; the hall glowed faintly; both with moonlight and with the lace of a street lamp; here he strolled about the little squares of the parqueted floor: Apollon Apollonovich; with him – Nikolai Apollonovich; they stepped across: out of the shadow – into the lace of the street lamp’s light; stepped across – out of this bright lace – into the shadow.
With an unaccustomed trustful gentleness, his head inclined low, Apollon Apollonovich said: half to his son, and half to himself:

‘You know – thou knowest: it is a difficult position – to be a man of state.’

They turned around.

‘I told them all: no, promoting the import of American sheafing-machines is not such a trifling matter; there is more humanitarianism in it than there is in windy speeches … Public law teaches us …’

They walked back over the little squares of the parqueted floor; they stepped across; out of the shadow – into the lunar gleaming of shoals.

‘All the same, we need humanitarian principles; humanism is a great cause, achieved through much suffering by such intellects as Giordano Bruno, as …’

For a long time yet did they wander here.

Apollon Apollonovich spoke in a cracked voice; sometimes he took his son by a button of his frock-coat with two fingers: he moved his lips right up to his son’s ear.

‘Kolenka, they’re windbags: humanitarianism, humanitarianism!
… There is more humanitarianism in sheafing-machines: we need sheafing-machines!
…’

Here he put his free arm around his son’s waist, drawing him over to the window – into the corner; muttered and swayed his head; they no longer took him into account, he was not needed:

‘Thou knowest – they’ve passed me by!’

Nikolai Apollonovich did not dare to believe his ears; yes, how naturally it had all happened – without explanation, without a storm, without confessions: this whispering in a corner, this fatherly caress.

Then why all these years had he … –?