Читать книгу A Man from the Future. 1856 - Евгений Платонов - Страница 24

He was walking along the embankment, lost in thought, and didn’t notice he’d collided with a man coming toward him.

“Excuse me!” said Dmitry, stepping back.

“Never mind, never mind,” the man replied, and Dmitry looked up at him.

Before him stood a man about twenty-seven or twenty-eight, thin, pale, with burning, feverish eyes. He was dressed poorly – in a worn frock coat, scuffed boots, no hat. Dark, disheveled hair. An intelligent face, nervous, tormented.

A student, Dmitry thought. Or former student. By appearance – a poor man.

The man looked at him with confusion, examining his strange clothes.

“You’re… a foreigner?” he asked.

“Yes, from America,” Dmitry answered mechanically.

“America,” the man repeated, and there was something strange in his voice – contempt? mockery? “Yes, of course, America. They say everyone there is free and equal. And they dress as they like, ignoring propriety, shoving past pedestrians.”

Dmitry felt a prick of irritation – there was something challenging in the stranger’s tone.

“So here, do clothes define a person?” he asked sharply.

The man smiled – bitterly, viciously:

“Here everything defines a person. Clothes, money, position in society. You’ll understand that if you stay in our city.”

A strange character, Dmitry thought. There’s something about him… familiar. As if I’d seen him somewhere before.

“And you yourself… are you local?” he asked.

“Local,” the man nodded. “From St. Petersburg. Born here, grew up here, and probably will die here. In this damned city, where man is a wolf to man.”

He spoke with some suppressed malice, and Dmitry involuntarily remembered lines from Crime and Punishment: “I wanted to become Napoleon, that’s why I killed.”

My God, he suddenly realized. Could it be… no, that’s impossible. It’s just a similar type. Raskolnikov is a fictional character. He hasn’t even been written yet.

But something inside told him: Dostoevsky didn’t invent his characters out of thin air. He took them from life. And here was one of those wretched, tormented, proud, and sick people who populated the pages of his novels.

“Excuse me,” Dmitry said quietly, “I’ve kept you. Goodbye.”

He went on, but the man suddenly called after him:

“Wait! You… where are you going?”

Dmitry turned around:

“I don’t know. I just arrived, haven’t found a hotel yet.”

“A hotel,” the man smirked. “Do you have money? It’s expensive here. Very expensive.”

“A little,” Dmitry lied.

Although what’s the point of lying – I don’t have any local money at all.

The man looked at him carefully – long, searchingly, as if trying to understand something important. Then he said:

“You know what? If you want, I can show you around. I’ll tell you where you can stay cheaply. I know a landlady who rents out rooms to students and visitors.”

Why would he do that? Dmitry thought suspiciously. Why help a stranger?

But there was no choice. He really didn’t know where to go, and help from anyone was invaluable right now.

“Thank you,” he said. “I would be very grateful.”

“Let’s go,” the man turned and began walking along the embankment. “By the way, my name is Rodion. Rodion Romanovich.”

Rodion Romanovich, Dmitry repeated to himself. Lord, this can’t be…

But he didn’t finish the thought – because at that moment he bit his tongue and the world began to blur before his eyes again.