Petersburg - Andrei Bely

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center, into a series of logical premises that flowed from the center and predetermined thought, soul, and this very table. Here he was the sole center of the universe, conceivable as well as inconceivable.

      This center made deductions.

      But no sooner had Nikolai Apollonovich managed to set aside the trivia of daily life and the abysm of inapprehensibilities called the world and life, than inapprehensibility again burst in.

      Nikolai Apollonovich tore himself away from his book:

      “Well? . . .”

      A muffled and deferential voice was heard:

      “Someone is asking for you, sir.”

      After locking himself in, and while reviewing the tenets of his system, which was being reduced to a unity step by step, he felt his body poured into “all,” while his head was displaced into the light bulb’s potbellied sphere of glass.

      And having thus displaced himself, Nikolai Apollonovich would become a truly creative being.

      He loved to lock himself in. And the rustle and tread of any intruder would shatter his consciousness.

      So it was now.

      “What is it?”

      But a voice answered from afar:

      “Someone has come.”

      ***

      At this, Nikolai Apollonovich’s face assumed a satisfied expression:

      “Ah, it’s someone from the costumer. The costumer has brought me my costume. . . .”

      And gathering up the skirts of his dressing gown, he strode off in the direction of the door. At the balustrade of the staircase, he leaned over and shouted:

      “Is that you?

      “The costumer?”

      What is this costumer business?

      ***

      In Nikolai Apollonovich’s room a box appeared. Nikolai Apollonovich locked the door. He cut the string with great fuss. He lifted the top and took out of the box: a half-mask with a black lace beard, and after the mask, a luxuriant bright red domino† with folds that rustled.

      Soon he was standing before the mirror, all satiny and red, holding the miniature half-mask over his face. The black lace of the beard fell away and back onto his shoulders, forming a fantastic wing on each side, right and left.

      After this masquerade, Nikolai Apollonovich, an extremely satisfied expression on his face, put first the red domino and then the black half-mask back in the box.

      WET AUTUMN

      Tufts of cloud scudded by in a greenish swarm. The greenish swarm rose ceaselessly over the interminable remoteness of the prospects of the Neva; into the greenish swarm stretched a spire . . . from the Petersburg Side.†

      Describing a funereal arc in the sky, a dark ribbon, a ribbon of soot, rose from the chimneys; and it tailed off onto the waters.

      The Neva seethed and shrieked with the high-pitched whistle of a small steamboat, it smashed steely, watery shields against the piers of the bridges, and it lapped at the granite.

      And against this glooming background of hanging soot tailing above the damp stones of the embankment railing, eyes staring into the turbid germ-infested waters of the Neva, there stood, in sharp outline, the silhouette of Nikolai Apollonovich.

      At the great black bridge† he stopped.

      An unpleasant smile flared on his face. He was gripped by memories of an unhappy love affair. Nikolai Apollonovich recalled a certain foggy night. That night he had leaned over the railing. He had turned around and raised his leg. He had lifted it, in shiny overshoe, over the railing. It would seem that further consequences ought to have ensued, but . . . Nikolai Apollonovich had lowered his leg.

      Recalling this unsuccessful act of his now, Nikolai Apollonovich smiled in a highly unpleasant manner, cutting a rather comic figure. Wrapped up in a greatcoat, he seemed stooped and somehow armless, with the long wing of the greatcoat flapping in the wind.

      “How handsome,” was heard all around Nikolai Apollonovich.

      “An ancient mask . . .”

      “Ah, how pale the face . . .”

      “That marble profile . . .”

      But had Nikolai Apollonovich burst out laughing, the ladies would have said:

      “What an ugly monster . . .”

      At a porch where two lions mockingly place paw on gray granite paw† he stopped, having spied the back of a passing officer. All entangled in the skirts of his greatcoat, he tried to overtake the officer:

      “Sergei Sergeyevich?”

      For a moment some thought or other flickered over the officer’s face. From the expression on his trembling lips one might have supposed that the officer was hesitating: should he recognize him or not:

      “Ah . . . hello. . . .”

      “Where are you going?” asked Nikolai Apollonovich, so that he might walk along the Moika† with the officer.

      “Home.”

      “That means we’re going the same way.”

      Above the two of them, alternating with rows of windows on a yellow building, were rows of lion faces, each over a coat of arms entwined with a stone garland.

      As if trying not to touch on something that was past, the two of them, interrupting each other, talked about how the disturbances of recent weeks had affected Nikolai Apollonovich’s philosophical labors.

      Above the two of them, alternating with rows of windows on a yellow government building, were rows of lion faces, each over a coat of arms entwined with a garland.

      There’s the Moika, and that same light-colored, three-storied, five-columned building; and the narrow strips of ornamented moulding above the third story: ring after ring; inside each ring was a Roman helmet on two crossed swords. They had already passed the building. And there’s the house. And there are the windows. . . .

      “Goodbye. Are you going further?”

      Nikolai Apollonovich’s heart began to pound. He was on the verge of asking something. But no, he did not ask. He stood all alone before the door that had just been slammed. He was gripped by memories of an unhappy love affair, or rather, of a sensual attraction.

      That same light-colored, five-columned building with a strip of ornamental moulding: inside each ring a Roman helmet on two crossed swords.

      ***

      Of an evening the Prospect is flooded with fiery obfuscation.† Down the middle, at regular intervals, hang the apples of electric lights.† While along the sides plays the changeable glitter of shop signs. Here the sudden flare of ruby lights, there the flare of emeralds. A moment later the rubies are there, and the emeralds are here.

      ***

      Nikolai Apollonovich was not seeing the Nevsky; before his eyes was that same house; windows and shadows behind the windows; perhaps merry voices: of the yellow cuirassier, Baron Ommau-Ommergau; and her voice, her voice.

      APOLLON APOLLONOVICH RECALLED

      Yes, Apollon Apollonovich recalled: recently he had overheard an inoffensive joke told by the clerks about himself:

      “He harps on the same note: disdain. . . .”

      His defenders intervened:

      “Gentlemen,

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