Diary of a Madman and Other Stories (5 page)

“Idiot!” cried Pirogov, giving him a violent push in the direction where her bright mantle was waving: “Go on, you ninny, you'll miss her! And I'll follow the blonde.” The two friends parted company.

“We know you all,” Pirogov thought to himself with a self-satisfied and self-assured smile, confident that no beauty alive could resist him.

The young man in the dress-coat and cloak walked with shy and fearful steps after the colored cape which floated on in the distance, now clothed in a bright sheen as it neared the light of a lamp, now momentarily covered with shadows as it passed beyond. His heart beat fast and he involuntarily quickened his pace. He did not even dare to imagine that he might gain any right to the attention of the beautiful woman fleeing into the distance, far less permit the black thought at which Pirogov had hinted; he just wanted to see the house, to note where stood the dwelling of the lovely being who, it seemed, had alighted on the Nevski Prospect straight from the skies and would probably soar away again to an unknown destination. He sped along so fast that he constantly pushed dignified personages with grey side-whiskers from the pavement.

This young man belonged to a class which is rather a strange phenomenon in our midst, and no more belongs to the citizens of St. Petersburg than a face which we see in dreams belongs to real life. This exceptional class of society is very unusual in a town where everyone is either a clerk, a merchant or a German skilled craftsman. He was an artist. A strange phenomenon is it not—a St. Petersburg artist? An artist in a land of snows, an artist in the land of Finns, where everything is wet, smooth, flat, pale, grey, and misty! These artists are quite unlike Italian artists, who are proud and fiery as Italy and her skies; on the contrary, these are for the most part kind, meek people, shy and indifferent, loving their art quietly, drinking tea with two friends in a little room and modestly discussing a favourite subject without raving at anything beside the point. This artist is for ever enticing home some old beggar woman and compelling her to sit for a full six hours merely to enable him to transfer to canvas her pitiful, apathetic mien. He paints the perspectives of his room which contains all manner of artist's rubbish: plaster-of-Paris limbs, turned coffee color with time and dust, broken easels, an over-turned pallette, a friend playing the guitar, walls splashed with paint and an open window through which one can catch a glimpse of the pale Neva, and its poor fishermen in their red shirts. Their tints are almost always grey and dim—the indelible stamp of the north. But despite all this, they labor over their work with genuine pleasure. They often nourish a genuine talent, and if only the fresh breeze of Italy would blow upon them, this talent would probably develop as freely, boundlessly and brightly as a plant which is at last taken out of the room into the clean air outside. Altogether they are very timid; a star and a big epaulette fill them with such confusion that they involuntarily lower the price of their works. They like to play the dandy sometimes, but this elegance of theirs always seems too crude and somewhat resembles a patch. You will sometimes see them wear an excellent dress-coat and a stained cloak, a costly velvet waistcoat and a jacket covered with paint. In just the same way, you will sometimes see a nymph painted upside-down on an unfinished landscape of his; not finding any other place, he has splashed her onto the soiled ground of his former creation, once painted by him with such delight. He never looks you straight in the eye; and if he does, he does it somehow dimly and vaguely; he does not fix you with the eagle eye of an observer, nor with the falcon gaze of a cavalry officer. This happens because he sees at one and the same time your features and the features of some sort of plaster-of-Paris Hercules standing in his room; or he can see his own picture which he is still thinking of expressing. This is why he often answers disjointedly and sometimes unsuitably, and the subjects mingling in his head still further increase his shyness.

And to this type belonged the young man we have described, the painter Piskarev, shy, retiring, but bearing in his soul the sparks of feeling, which were ready to leap into flame at a propitious moment. He hastened with a secret trepidation after the object of his desire, who had made such a strong impression on him, and he seemed amazed at his own rudeness. The unknown being on whom his eyes, his thoughts and feelings had become so fastened, suddenly turned her head and glanced at him. God, what divine features! The dazzling whiteness of a most beautiful brow was shaded with hair as lovely as agate. They waved, these wonderful curls, and some falling below the little hat, touched her cheeks which were tinged with a faint, fresh color from the cool evening air. About her lips clung a whole swarm of wondrous reveries. Everything that remains of childhood recollections, which fills one with dreams and a calm inspiration before the burning ikon-lamp—all this seemed to unite, to flow together and to lie reflected in her harmonious lips. She glanced at Piskarev and at this glance his heart fluttered; she glanced at him coldly, a look of indignation passed over her face at the sight of such insolent pursuit; but on this beautiful face anger itself was bewitching. Overcome with shame and timidity, he stopped with downcast eyes; but how could one lose this divinity without even discovering the shrine which she deigned to visit! Thoughts such as these passed through the young dreamer's mind and he decided to continue the pursuit. But to conceal it, he remained at a great distance, gazed carelessly from side to side and examined shop signs without however losing sight of a single step the strange lady made. The passers-by thinned out, the street grew quieter, the beautiful woman looked back and he thought a faint smile flashed across her lips. He trembled and could not believe his eyes. No, it must have been the deceptive light of a lamp showing something like a smile on her face; no, his own dreams were mocking him! But his breath grew constricted in his breast, everything in him trembled subtly, all his feelings burned and everything before him hid in a kind of fog. The pavement rushed away beneath him, carriages with their galloping horses seemed motionless, the bridge stretched and broke at its arch, a house stood roof downwards, a hut tumbled to meet him and the watchman's halberd along with the golden lettering of a sign and a pair of painted scissors, seemed to shine on his very eyelashes. And all this was wrought by one glance, by one turn of a pretty head. Without hearing, seeing, or understanding, he sped after the light footsteps of her lovely feet, trying to control the speed of his step which rushed onwards to keep pace with his heart. At times he was seized with doubt as to whether the expression of her face had been so well inclined and then he would stop for a moment; but the beating of his heart, an irresistible force and the excitement of all his feelings urged him onwards. He did not even notice how suddenly a four-storied house reared up before him, all four rows of windows shining with light gazed at him, and the rails on the porch-steps came against him with a shock of metal. He saw the stranger fly up the stairs, then glance back, place a finger on her lips and make a sign for him to follow. His knees trembled; his feelings, his thoughts burned; a flash of joy pierced his heart with unbearable sharpness. No, this was no dream! Heavens, how much happiness in one second of time! Such a wondrous life in a couple of minutes!

But was this not all a dream? Could she—for one of whose divine looks he was ready to give his whole life, to approach whose abode he felt was indescribable bliss—could she now be so well disposed and attentive to him? He bounded up the stairs. He experienced no earthly thought; he was not warmed with the flame of earthly passion—no, he was in that moment chaste and pure as a virgin youth still inhaling the vague spiritual need for love. And a thing which would have aroused crude ideas in a dissolute person, on the contrary inspired him all the more. The trust which a beautiful frail being had bestowed on him, this trust laid upon him a vow of knightly strictness, a vow of slavery to fulfill her every command. He only wished that these commands might be as difficult as possible to accomplish, so that he might fly to attain them, exerting all his strength. He did not doubt that some mysterious and portentous occurrence had forced the stranger to entrust herself to him; that he would probably be asked to do an important service, and he already felt within himself a strength and determination for anything.

The staircase wound ahead and his swift thoughts wound with it. “Careful how you go!” rang out a voice like a harp and filled his veins with fresh excitement. In the dark heights of the fourth floor, the stranger knocked at a door; it was opened and they went in together. A rather good-looking woman met them with a candle in her hand, but she gave Piskarev such an odd and brazen look that he dropped his eyes involuntarily. They entered a room. Three female figures met his gaze in different corners of the apartment. One was laying out some cards; another sat at the piano and played some sort of pathetic approach to an ancient polonaise on two fingers; a third sat before a mirror, combing her long hair and making no attempt to interrupt her toilet on the entrance of an unknown person. There reigned over everything a kind of unpleasant disorder which one usually meets only in the uncared-for room of a bachelor. The furniture which was rather good, was covered in dust; a spider had overspread the sculptured cornice with his web; through an unlatched door into another room shone a boot with a spur and the braid of a red uniform; a loud male voice and a woman's laughter rang out quite unrestrainedly.

Heavens, where had he come! At first he refused to believe what he saw and began to gaze more steadily at the objects which filled the room; but the bare walls and uncurtained windows showed no trace of the presence of a careful housewife; the worn faces of these pitiful creatures, one of whom sat down almost under his nose and began examining him as calmly as a spot on someone else's dress, all this convinced him that he had entered the repulsive asylum where pitiful depravity makes its home, born of the pinchbeck morality and terrible overcrowding of the capital—the asylum where man has sacrilegiously crushed and mocked everything pure and holy which embellishes life, where woman, the beauty of the world and crown of creation, has become a strange ambiguous being, where she has become deprived of the purity of her soul and of everything feminine and has acquired repellently the manners and boldness of a man and ceased to be the weak and beautiful being so distinct from us. Piskarev measured her from head to foot with astounded eyes, as if trying to make quite certain whether she was really the woman who had so bewitched him and so carried him away on the Nevski Prospect. But she stood before him as lovely as ever; her hair was as beautiful; her eyes still seemed divine. She was fresh; she was only seventeen years old; one could see that this awful depravity had only recently overtaken her. He still did not dare to touch her cheeks, they were fresh and faintly flushed—she was beautiful.

He stood motionless before her and was ready to forget himself as naively as he had forgotten himself before. But the beautiful girl grew tired of this long silence and she smiled meaningly straight into his eyes. This smile was full of a kind of pathetic insolence: it was as odd and as alien to her face as an expression of piety in an extortioner or an account-book to a poet. He shuddered. She opened her pretty lips and began saying something, but it was all so stupid and so trite.... As though intellect abandons a person when chastity goes. He no longer wanted to hear anything. He was extremely droll and simple, like a child. Instead of making use of such affability, instead of being delighted with this chance which would undoubtedly have delighted anyone else in his place, he turned like a wild goat and rushed out into the street.

With bowed head and arms hanging at his sides, he sat in his room like a miserable soul who has found a priceless pearl and dropped it into the ocean. “Such a beautiful woman, such heavenly features! And where is she? In what place? . . .” That was all he could manage to say.

It is true that we are never so filled with pity as at the sight of beauty touched by the pestilential breath of depravity. Let ugliness join hands with it, but beauty, beauty is delicate.... It mingles in our thoughts only with what is pure and clean. The beautiful girl who had so bewitched poor Piskarev really was of a wonderful and exceptional appearance. Her presence in that despicable circle seemed more extraordinarily still. Her features were so purely cultured, the whole expression of her lovely face was marked with such nobility, that one could not possibly imagine that depravity had opened its terrible claws above her head. She would have been a pearl without price, the whole world, the whole paradise and treasure of an ardent husband; she would have been the lovely quiet star of an inconspicuous family circle and would have given sweet commands with a slight motion of her lips. She would have been a goddess in a crowded ballroom, on shining parquet, in dazzling candlelight, before the speechless veneration of a throng of worshippers prostrate at her feet; but, alas, at the ghastly bidding of some hellish power thirsting to destroy life's harmony she was cast down, as he laughed, into this awful abyss.

Stricken with a rending pity he sat before his guttering candle. It was long past midnight, the bell in the tower sounded the half hour and he sat on motionless, unsleeping, inactively vigilant. Drowsiness, seizing on his immobility, was beginning to overcome him gradually, the room had begun to vanish, only the candlelight shone through the reveries which held him in thrall, when a sudden knock at the door made him tremble and come to himself. The door opened and a footman in a rich livery entered. His sequestered room had never seen a rich livery, above all at such an unusual time.... He could not believe it and gazed hard at the footman with impatient curiosity.

“The lady,” said the footman with a civil bow, “whom you were pleased to visit a few hours ago, instructed me to invite you to come to her and has sent her carriage.”