Читать книгу Petersburg - Andrei Bely - Страница 29

Petersburg streets possess one indubitable quality: they transform passersby into shadows.

This we have seen in the case of the mysterious stranger.

Having arisen as a thought, he somehow became connected with the senator’s house. He surfaced there on the prospect, immediately following the senator in our story.

From the intersection to that restaurant on Millionnaya Street^† we have obligingly described the route of the stranger as far as that notorious word “suddenly,”^† which interrupted everything.

Let us investigate his soul. But first, let us investigate that restaurant, and even the vicinity of that restaurant. There are grounds for this.

In the investigation that we have quite naturally undertaken, we have merely anticipated Senator Ableukhov’s desire that an agent of the secret police^† should doggedly follow the steps of the stranger. While the insouciant agent is still inactive back in his office, we ourselves will be this agent.

But haven’t we made fools of ourselves? Now what sort of agent are we? The real one does exist. And he’s on the alert, so help me, he is.

When the stranger disappeared through the doors of that restaurant, we turned and spied two silhouettes cutting through the fog. One was both fat and tall and conspicuous for his build. But we could not make out his face (silhouettes, after all, have no faces). And yet we did discern an open umbrella and galoshes and a hat, half sealskin, with ear-flaps.

The mangy little figure of an utterly undersized gentleman was what largely comprised the second silhouette. His face was visible: we did not manage to see his face, for we were astonished by the enormous size of a wart. Thus facial substance had been obscured by insolent accidentality (which is as it should be in the world of shadows).

Pretending to be looking into the clouds, we let the indistinct pair pass ahead. The pair paused in front of the restaurant door.

“Hmmm?”

“Here. . . .”

“That’s what I thought.”

“What measures have you taken?”

“I’ve placed a man there, inside the restaurant.”

***

“Hmmm . . . I’ll have to . . . Hmmm! . . . wish you success. . . .”

The undertaking had been set like a clock mechanism.

“Hmmmm?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Damned head cold.”

“Listen: you should accept some remuneration. . . .”

“No, you just won’t understand me!”

“Yes, I will: you’re definitely out of handkerchiefs.”

“What?”

“But you have a cold!”

“I’m not working for remuneration: I am an artist!”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“What?”

“I’m using the tallow candle cure.”

The little figure took out its snotty handkerchief:

“Be sure to report it: Nikolai Apollonovich has given a promise. . . .”

“A tallow candle is a wonderful remedy!”

“Tell them everything!”

“At night you smear your nostrils with it and in the morning you’re fit as a fiddle.”

Again the handkerchief began its work beneath the wart. The two shadows were already flowing off into the brain-chilling murk. Soon the shadow of the fat man reemerged from the fog, and looked distractedly at the spire of Peter and Paul.^†

And it went into that restaurant.