Diary of a Madman and Other Stories (4 page)

HT 34 EHT MI.YRAE
349

NO, I have not the strength to endure it any longer. Oh Lord! the things they are doing to me! They pour cold water on my head! They will not hear, they will not look, they will not listen to me! What have I done to them? Why do they torment me? What do they want of a miserable wretch like me? What can I give them? I have nothing. I have not the strength, I cannot endure these agonies. My head is on fire and everything is whirling round. Save me, take me away! Give me a troika of horses swift as the wind! Take your seat, my coachman; ring out, my bell; dart upwards, my steeds, and carry me away from this world! On, on, to where we can see nothing, nothing! There is the sky whirling before me; a star twinkling in the distance; the forest rushes by with dark trees and the moon; blue mist lies spread beneath my feet; a chord resounds in the mind; on one side stretches the sea, on the other, Italy; and yonder, Russian huts can be seen. Is that my home in the blue distance? Is it my mother sitting before the window? Mother, save your poor son! Drop a tear on his poor aching head! See how they are tormenting him. Press your poor child to your breast! There is no place for him in the world! They drive him out! Mother, dear, have pity on your sick little boy! . . . And do you know that the Bey of Algiers has a wen just under his nose?

THERE is nothing to compare with the Nevski Prospect, at any rate in St. Petersburg; for that city it comprises everything. The Beauty of the capital!—what splendours does this street not know? I'm certain that not one of the town's pale and clerkish inhabitants would exchange the Nevski Prospect for any earthly blessing. Not only the possessor of twenty-five years, a handsome moustache and an amazingly tailored frock-coat, but even the man whose chin sprouts white hairs and whose head is as smooth as a silver dish, waxes enthusiastic about the Nevski Prospect. And the ladies! Oh, to the ladies the Nevski Prospect is an even greater delight! But who is not delighted with it? You hardly enter the Nevski Prospect, when you catch the fragrance of the purest sauntering. Even if you had some important essential business, you would probably forget it all as soon as you stepped into the street. This is the one single place where people do not show themselves because they have to, where they are not driven by necessity and the commercial interest which embraces the whole of St. Petersburg. It seems as if the man one meets in the Nevski Prospect is less of an egoist than those in the Morskaya, Gorokhovaya, Liteynaya, Meshchanskaya and other streets, where greed, self-interest and necessity are stamped on the passers-by and on those flying along in carriages and
drozhki.
The Nevski Prospect is the common meeting-ground of St. Petersburg. A man who lives in the Petersburg or Viborg district and who has not been to see his friend at the Sands or the Moscow Gates for several years, can be certain that they will come across each other here. No address book and no inquiry office can produce such correct information as the Nevski Prospect. Omnipotent Nevski Prospect! Unique incitement for the poor man in St. Petersburg to take a walk. How clean-swept are its pavements and, heavens, how many feet have left their trace upon it! The clumsy dirty boot of the retired soldier beneath whose weight the very granite seems to crack, and the miniature slipper, light as smoke, of the young lady who turns her little head towards the dazzling shop windows like a sunflower towards the sun, and the hopeful ensign's rattling sabre, which draws a sharp scratch over its surface—everything is avenged upon it by the power of strength or the power of weakness. How swift the phantasmagoria which develops there in the course of a single day! How many metamorphoses it undergoes within twenty-four hours! Let us begin from very early morning when all St. Petersburg smells of hot newly-baked bread and is crowded with old women in tattered dresses and cloaks effecting their incursions upon the churches and compassionate passers-by.

Then the Nevski Prospect is empty: the burly shopkeepers and their clerks are either still sleeping in their holland shirts or lathering the honorable cheek and drinking coffee; beggars gather at the doors of the pastry-cooks where the sleepy Ganymede who flew about like a fly yesterday with cups of chocolate, crawls out now with a broom in his hand, without a tie, and flings them stale patties and leavings. Along the streets amble men who must; occasionally Russian peasants cross the road hurrying to work in boots muddied with lime, which even the canal of Catherine the Great, famous for its cleanliness, could not possibly cleanse. It is usually indecorous for ladies to walk out at this time, because the Russian people like to express themselves in words so crude that ladies are not likely to meet with them even at the theatre. Now and then a somnolent clerk ambles by with his brief-case under his arm, if his way to the office lies across the Nevski Prospect. One can say definitely that at this time, until twelve o'clock that is, the Nevski Prospect is not an end in itself for anybody, but serves merely as a means: gradually it becomes thronged with persons who have their own occupations, their own worries and cares, but none of whom gives the Prospect a thought. The Russian peasant talks about a ten-
kopek
piece or about seven
grosh
of copper, the old men and old women gesticulate with their arms or talk to themselves, sometimes with rather striking gestures, but no one listens to them or laughs at them with the possible exception of urchins in striped linen aprons, with empty flagons or mended shoes in their hands, running like streaks of lightning along the Nevski Prospect. During this time, whatever you may have on, even if you wear a peaked cap instead of a hat, even if your collars stick out too far beyond your cravat–no one will notice.

At noon tutors of all nations invade the Nevski Prospect with their charges in lawn collars, English Joneses and French Coqs go hand in hand with the nurslings entrusted to their parental vigilance and explain to them with fitting gravity that the signboards above the shops are put there so that one can tell by means of them what the shops themselves contain. Governesses, pale misses and rosy Slavs walk in state behind their light, agile little girls, bidding them lift their shoulders a trifle and hold themselves straighter; in short, at this time the Nevski Prospect is a pedagogic Nevski Prospect.

But the nearer it is to two o'clock, the more rare become the governesses, the pedagogues and children: finally, they are quite outnumbered by their delicately-nurtured parents, who go arm-in-arm with their brightly-colored variegated lady-friends with delicate nerves. Gradually they are joined by all those who have completed their rather important household affairs, who have just spoken with their doctor about the weather and a small pimple which has happened on the nose, have informed themselves about the health of their horses and their children, have shown great genius, in fact, reading a theatre or concert announcement and an important article in the paper about the latest arrivals and departures, and, finally, have partaken of a cup of coffee and of tea; they, in turn, are joined by those to whom an enviable fate has assigned the blessed calling of clerks with special commissions; and these are joined by persons serving in the Foreign Office and distinguished by the nobility of their occupations and habits. Heavens, what wonderful employments and offices there are! How they uplift and rejoice the heart! But alas! I am not an official and am deprived of the pleasure of observing the delicacy of my superiors' attitude towards me. Everything you encounter in the Nevski Prospect is full of propriety: the gentlemen in long frock-coats with their hands in their pockets, the ladies in rose, white and pale blue satin
redingotes,
and elegant hats. Here you meet with unique side-whiskers, tucked with unusual and astounding taste beneath the cravat, velvet whiskers, satin whiskers, black as sable or coal, but alas! belonging solely to the Foreign Office. Providence has refused black side-whiskers to men serving in the other departments, they are compelled to their extreme displeasure to wear red ones. Here you will find marvellous moustaches which neither pen nor brush could depict; moustaches to which the best part of a lifetime has been devoted, the objects of long vigils by day and night; moustaches upon which the most ravishing perfumes and aromas have been poured and which have been anointed with the most precious and rarest sorts of pomades; moustaches which are wrapped in fine vellum paper for the night; moustaches upon which their possessor's tenderest attachment breathes and which are the envy of passers-by. A thousand varieties of ladies' hats, gowns, kerchiefs, bright and wispy, which sometimes retain their owners' partiality for two whole days at a time, are bound to dazzle anyone in the Nevski Prospect. It looks as if a whole sea of butterflies has suddenly risen from the flow-erstalks and is waving in a dazzling cloud above the black beetles of the male sex. Here you will meet with waists such as you have never even dreamed of: fine narrow waists, no wider than the neck of a bottle, on meeting which you will step aside respectfully to avoid pushing against them rudely with a careless elbow; fear and trembling will assail your heart lest even some careless breath of yours might injure this most wondrous product of nature and art. And what ladies' sleeves you will meet in the Nevski Prospect! Ach, what perfection! They are rather like two air balloons so that the lady might suddenly float up in the air, if she was not supported by a gentleman; because it is as easy and pleasant to lift a lady in the air as to lift a glass of champagne to one's lips. In no other place do two people bow so graciously and readily as they do in the Nevski Prospect. Here you will meet unique smiles, the products of the highest art, now a smile to make you melt with delight, now one which makes you feel lower than the grass and forces you to bow your head, and again a smile to make you feel taller than the spire of the Admiralty and hold your head high. Here you will meet people who converse of a concert or the weather with an exceptional air of breeding and a sense of their own importance. Here you will meet with a thousand inscrutable temperaments and phenomena. God, what strange types are to be found in the Nevski Prospect! There are a great number of people who, when they meet you, invariably glance at your shoes and if you pass them, they look back so that they can see your coat-tails. I can't understand why to this day. At first, I thought they were cobblers, but this was quite wrong however; for the most part they work in different official departments, the majority of them can write an address from one government office to another in the most perfect manner, or else they are people who occupy their time with strolling about and reading papers in teashops—in a word, for the most part they are all respectable people. In this blessed time between two and three o'clock in the afternoon, a time which could be called the focal point of the Nevski Prospect, the main exhibition of all man's best creations takes place. One shows off a modish frock-coat with the best beaver fur, another a perfect Greek nose, a third carries a pair of peerless side-whiskers, then a lady—two pretty eyes and an amazing little hat, a fifth has a signet ring with a talisman on his elegant little finger, another lady—a foot in a charming slipper, a seventh has an astonishing cravat, an eighth—a moustache to plunge one into stupefaction. But as soon as it strikes three the exhibition is over and the crowd grows thin.

At three o'clock there is a fresh change. It is suddenly spring in the Nevski Prospect: it becomes thronged with clerks in green uniforms. Hungry titular councillors, aulic councillors and other kinds of councillors do their utmost to quicken their pace. Young collegiate registrars and provincial and collegiate secretaries make haste to seize the opportunity of strolling along the Nevski Prospect in a dignified manner calculated to show that they have not sat for six hours in a council chamber at all. But the old collegiate secretaries and titular and aulic councillors walk quickly with bent heads: they have no time for examining the passers-by; they have not yet broken completely with their tasks; their heads are full of paraphernalia and whole archives of business begun and left unfinished ; for a long time they see boxes of papers or the stout face of the head of the Chancellor's office instead of signboards.

After four o'clock the Nevski Prospect is empty and you will not be likely to meet a single clerk. A sempstress from one of the shops may run across the Nevski Prospect with a box in her arms; some pathetic prey for a humanitarian person, sent about the world in a frieze cloak; an odd stranger to the town to whom all hours are alike; some tall, thin Englishwoman with a reticule and a book in her hands; a Russian workman in a
demicoton
overcoat with a waist somewhere up his back and a narrow beard, who has spent his whole life hurrying and in whom everything shakes, back, hands, legs and head, when he passes politely along the pavement, or sometimes a squat mechanic—you will meet no one else at this time in the Nevski Prospect.

But as soon as twilight falls on houses and on streets, and the watchman, covering himself with his plaid, scrambles up the steps to light the lamp, and from the low shop windows those prints gaze out which dare not show themselves by day, then the Nevski Prospect begins to revive and to move again, and then begins that mysterious time when the lamps lend an enticing, wondrous light to all things. You will meet a great many young people, for the most part bachelors in warm coats and cloaks. At this time one feels a kind of purpose, or rather, something resembling a purpose, something completely involuntary; everyone's pace grows more hurried and becomes uneven. Long shadows glimmer on the walls and on the pavement and nearly top the Police Bridge. The young collegiate registrars and provincial and collegiate secretaries promenade about for a long time; but the old collegiate registrars and titular and aulic councillors mostly sit at home, either because they are married people, or because the German cooks who live in their homes prepare their meals so well. You will meet those highly respected old men who strolled along the Nevski Prospect at two o'clock with such importance and such amazing breeding. You will see them hastening just like the young collegiate registrars in order to peep beneath the hat-brim of a lady glimpsed in the distance, whose full lips and cheeks plastered with rouge are so pleasing to many of those walking by, and principally to the barmen, workmen and shop-keepers always dressed in German overcoats, who walk in crowds and usually arm-in-arm.

“Just a minute!” cried Lieutenant Pirogov at this time, catching hold of the young man in the dress-coat and cloak walking with him. “Did you see?”

“Yes. She's marvellous, an absolute
Perugino Bianca.
”

“What one d'you mean?”

“That one, the one with the dark hair.... And what eyes, God, what eyes! The lines, the contour and features of the face—marvellous!”

“I'm talking about the blonde who went after her that way. But why not follow the brunette if you like the look of her so much?”

“Oh, how can one!” exclaimed the young man in the dress-coat, flushing. “As if she's one of the women who go about the Nevski Prospect in the evening; she must be a lady of great distinction,” he added sighing: “Her mantle alone would cost about eighty roubles!”