Petersburg by Robert A. Maguire & John E. Malmstad & Olga Matich & Andrei Bely

Author:Robert A. Maguire & John E. Malmstad & Olga Matich & Andrei Bely
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 2018-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

And that was the Last Judgment.

***

“How then can this be? Who can this possibly be?”

“Your father.”

“Who?”

“Saturn.”†

***

The Last Judgment was at hand.

There was no Earth, no Venus, no Mars, merely three revolving rings.† A fourth one had just blown up, and an enormous Sun was still preparing to become a world. Nebulae whirled past. Nikolai Apollonovich had been cast into measureless immensity, and distances flowed.

Afterwards he found himself on Earth. The sword of Saturn hung suspended, and the continent of Atlantis collapsed. Nikolai Apollonovich was a depraved monster. Then he was in China, and there Apollon Apollonovich, the Emperor of China, ordered him to slaughter many thousands (which was done). In more recent times thousands of Tamerlane’s horsemen had poured down on Rus. Nikolai Apollonovich had galloped into this Rus on a charger of the steppes. He was then incarnated in the blood of a Russian nobleman. And he reverted to his old ways: he slaughtered thousands there. Now he wanted to throw a bomb at his father. But his father was Saturn. The circle of time had come full turn. The kingdom of Saturn had returned.

The flow of time had ceased to be. All was being destroyed.

“Father!”

“You wished to blow me to bits, and therefore, all is being destroyed . . .”

“Not you, but . . .”

“All is crumbling into ruins, toppling onto Saturn. . . .”

The atmosphere was darkening outside the windows. All had reached a burning hot state, expanding uncontrollably. It was whirling horribly.

“Cela . . . tourne . . .” howled Nikolai Apollonovich, who had been deprived of his body but had not noticed it.

“No, sa . . . tourne. . . .”

***

Having been deprived of his body, he nonetheless felt his body: the invisible center, which had formerly been consciousness, seemed to have a semblance of what it had been. Logic had turned into bones, and syllogisms were wrapped all around like sinews. The contents of logic were now covered with flesh. Thus the “I” again presented its corporeal image, although it was not body. And in that which had exploded was revealed an alien “I”: it had come running from Saturn. It had returned to Saturn.

He sat as he used to sit previously—without body but in a body. (How very peculiar!) Outside the windows, in the darkness, resounded: tourne-tourne.

The chronology was running backwards.

“What then is our chronology ?”

But Saturn, Apollon Apollonovich, roaring with laughter, replied:

“None, Kolenka, none at all: the chronology, my dear boy, is—zero.”

“Oh! Oh! What then is ‘I am’?”

“A zero.”

“And zero?”

“A bomb.”

Nikolai Apollonovich understood that he himself was a bomb. And he burst with a boom.

***

He awoke from his dream. He understood: his head was lying on the sardine tin.

A dreadful dream. But what was it? He could not recollect. His childhood nightmares had returned: Pèpp Pèppovich Pèpp, swelling from the little blob, was in the sardine tin—

—Pèpp Pèppovich Pèpp is a Party bomb, chirring inaudibly; Pèpp Pèppovich Pèpp will expand and expand. And Pèpp Pèppovich Pèpp: will burst!

“Am I delirious, or what?”

Again in his head began whirling: what to do? Only a quarter of an hour left.

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