Virginsky squinted. ‘The sunlight is particularly bright today, do you not find?’
‘I do not find it especially so. Perhaps you would like to move your chair, so that you are not looking directly into the window. Would you care for some tea?’
Virginsky shook his head. ‘Are you not going to reprimand me?’ He winced, as if he felt Porfiry’s solicitude to be an intolerable cruelty.
‘I prefer not to. I imagine that your own conscience, the inevitable pangs of. . uh, remorse that you are suffering, will serve as both reprimand and warning. I will, however, express my concern, Pavel Pavlovich. Permit me to say that this is not like you. In all the years I have known you, I have observed you to be an admirably sober young man. To call you abstemious would not be overstating it. Therefore I consider this evident lapse to be out of character. I trust it does not presage the onset of a new habit and is rather the temporary influence of Yarilo, coupled with the accident of meeting an old friend.’
‘He was not an old friend.’
‘A new friend then?’
‘Why are you so interested in him? Am I not permitted to have a life outside the department, of which you are not a part?’
‘My dear, of course you are permitted! What an extraordinary thought! Let us put this behind us. In point of fact, I am secretly rather pleased that you have allowed yourself to relax to this extent. So long as it does not become a regular occurrence, I can only think that it will do you good to go on a binge once in a while.’
‘It was not a binge. I do not go on binges, Porfiry Petrovich. I. .’ But Virginsky broke off. A confessional flicker in his eyes was as close as he got to confiding in Porfiry.
‘I understand completely. It is because you are not used to indulging in alcoholic consumption at all that a small amount had such a deleterious effect on you. There are some taverns in Haymarket Square where one only has to breathe in the atmosphere and the room begins to spin.’
‘How did you know I was in Haymarket Square?’
‘I did not. I only mentioned Haymarket Square because it is notorious for the density of its drinking dives. I rather imagined that you and your friend entertained yourselves in a far more respectable establishment. Somewhere like the Crystal Palace, no doubt?’
‘Why Crystal Palace? What do you mean by that?’
‘I mean nothing by it, Pavel Pavlovich! Good Heavens, what has got into you? You are so very sensitive this morning.’
‘It is a satirical reference to my political aspirations, is it not?’
‘In all honesty, no. I merely mentioned it because I know it to be a lively place where young people are wont to meet.’ Porfiry blinked his face into an expression of severity. ‘Enough, Pavel Pavlovich. I must ask you, are you here to work or to pick a fight with me? If it is the latter, then I have no use for you, not today, not any day.’
‘I. . I apologise, Porfiry Petrovich. I will endeavour to fulfil my duties as well as I am able. I trust that you will not be disappointed.’
‘If you are up to it, I would have you look at these. Kozodavlev’s cuttings from Russian Soil and Russian Era. When you have finished reading them, I suggest we pay a visit to the university, where I hope you will introduce me to your old professor.’
*
Virginsky surveyed the narrow infinity of parquet flooring ahead of him. He was standing at one end of the great, elongated hallway of the Twelve Collegiums building on Vasilevsky Island. The hallway ran the entire length of that determinedly linear structure, connecting all the faculties and disciplines — linking History and Philology to Philosophy and Law, Physics and Mathematics to Oriental Studies — in one long sequence of learning. The unifying principle of the architecture had been inherited from Peter the Great, who had originally commissioned the building to bring together the disparate departments, or colleges, of his bureaucracy.
It was two weeks since Good Friday. Lectures were over for the year. The place was almost deserted.
Virginsky felt again the same sickening mixture of apprehension and anger that he had known as a student walking the hallway. Perhaps that was where his habit of counting his steps had originated, for he knew that it was three hundred and sixty-four paces from one end to the other. He remembered the awe that the seemingly endless corridor had inspired in him the first time he had confronted it. It came to represent an uncertain and bewildering future. His hope had once been that, as he walked its length, he would acquire the knowledge and skills he needed to make his way in the world. Of course, it had not quite worked out like that. He had acquired something, been prepared for something, but in the process his ideas about what constituted ‘making his way in the world’ had been subject to constant revision. It was ironic to think that such a long, straight corridor could lead in so many directions.
Along one side of the hallway were the arched windows that looked out onto University Line, with benches projecting from the wall beneath them; along the other, glass-fronted bookcases and the doors to lecture rooms and faculty offices. The vast length of the corridor was punctuated by statues and portraits of benefactors and men of learning, put there, perhaps, as much to inspire the students as to honour the dead. To the student Virginsky, they had been distant and intimidating presences. Indeed, he could now look upon his whole time at the university as an attempt to overcome the sense of inadequacy that those figures provoked, to reach a point where he could consider himself, if not their equal, at least entitled to be their critic.
One man had encouraged him in this aspiration, the man they were now coming to see, Professor Alexander Glebovich Tatiscev.
As he passed the figures now, Virginsky barely gave them a second thought.
‘Significant, is it not, that the university rolls together the disciplines of law and philosophy into one faculty?’ mused Porfiry. ‘It inevitably makes philosophers of our lawyers. I wonder if this singular circumstance is not responsible for all the recent developments in our society, those which publications like Russian Soil inevitably perceive as ills.’
‘There is nothing surprising about it,’ answered Virginsky. ‘How a state administers justice — or fails to — makes that state what it is. It is necessarily a philosophical, as well as a political, consideration. Similarly, when one begins to think deeply about the concept of justice, one is inevitably led to question the administrative arrangements within which justice is expected to function. If those arrangements are flawed, one naturally calls for change. The teaching of jurisprudence is inherently inimical to the status quo.’
‘Inherently? Only if the status quo is itself unjust, surely?’
‘Well, yes. That goes without saying. As it goes without saying that the status quo here in Russia is unjust.’
‘Good gracious, Pavel Pavlovich! How emboldened you are by this return to your alma mater!’
‘The very fact that you consider what I have said to be bold, when it is simply a statement of fact, proves my point, Porfiry Petrovich.’ And yet there was some truth in what Porfiry had said, although Virginsky would not acknowledge it. A nervous excitement had been mounting with each step he took along the hallway. It was overlaid by a complicated nostalgia, not wholly, or even predominantly good. He had been so often hungry and unhappy as a student that it could hardly be a simple pleasure to feel himself walking back into that past.
His feelings about meeting his former professor were equally complex. He ought not to feel such trepidation. But he could not shake off the anxiety that he would be a disappointment to his erstwhile mentor. Had he not, after all, chosen a career path that appeared to put him on the side of the enemy? He was barely able to admit to an even worse fear: that Tatiscev would be a disappointment to him.