Petersburg (Translated by McDuff 1995) by Andréi Biély

Author:Andréi Biély [Biély, Andréi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature
ISBN: 9780141968797
Publisher: Penguin Classics; Penguin Group
Published: 1916-01-01T16:00:00+00:00

Griffins

And the prospects stretched – over there, over there: the prospects stretched; the gloomy pedestrian did not hurry his step: the gloomy pedestrian looked painfully around him: these infinities of buildings! The gloomy pedestrian was Nikolai Apollonovich.

… Without losing a moment, he must at once undertake – but what was he to undertake? After all, was it not he, was it not he who had so lavishly sown the seeds of the theory concerning the absurdity of all forms of pity? Had he not, in front of that silent little group, once expressed his opinions – always about one and the same thing: about his suppressed revulsion for the barin, for the barin’s old ears, for all his Tartardom and aristocratic haughtiness, including … including that birdlike, outstretched neck … with a subcutaneous vein.

At last he hired some tardy Vanka and his cab: past him the four-storeyed buildings moved and flew.

The Admiralty presented its eight-columned flank: turned pink and vanished; from the other side, across the Neva, between white borders of plaster the walls of an old building threw their bright carrot colour; a black-and-white sentry booth stood as it always did, on the left; an old Pavlovsk grenadier was striding back and forth in a grey overcoat there; he had his sharp sparkling bayonet thrown over his shoulder.

Evenly, slowly, listlessly, Vanka trotted past the Pavlovsk grenadier: evenly, slowly, listlessly, Nikolai Apollonovich, too, bumped past the Pavlovsk grenadier. The bright morning, ablaze with the sparks of the Neva, had turned all the water over there into an abyss of pure gold; and into the abyss the funnel of a small whistling steamboat disappeared at full tilt; he saw that the dried-up little figure on the pavement was quickening his tardy pace, somehow bobbing along over the paving-stones – that dried-up little figure who … in whom … whom he recognized: it was Apollon Apollonovich. Nikolai Apollonovich wanted to detain the cab driver in order to give the little figure enough time to move away, in order to … it was already too late: the old, shaven head turned towards the cab driver, gave a shake, and turned away. Nikolai Apollonovich, so as not to be recognized, turned his back towards the tardy pedestrian: he hid his nose in his beaver; all that could be seen was a collar and a peaked cap; already the yellow block of a house had risen before him into the fog.

Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov, having seen the adolescent girl to her home, was now hurrying towards the doorway of the yellow house; past him, too, the Admiralty had just moved its eight-columned flank; the black-and-white striped booth was on the left where it usually was; now he was walking along the embankment, contemplating there, on the Neva, the abyss of pure gold into which the funnel of a small whistling steamboat had just flown at full tilt.

At this point Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov heard behind his back the thunder of the carriage; turned his old, shaven head

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