Virginsky drained his glass and slammed it, more heavily than he had intended, on the table. A wave of vertigo rocked through his head as he sprang to his feet. ‘Take me with you.’
‘My dear magistrate. .’
‘My name is Pavel Pavlovich.’ After a moment, he added, ‘Virginsky.’
‘I know that.’
‘And what may I call you? It is absurd, if I am to accompany you to a party, for me not to know your name.’
‘I have not yet said that I will take you.’
‘Do I not deserve some reward for what I have brought you?’ Virginsky’s tone was becoming strident.
The other man looked around the tavern warily. The clientele was universally absorbed in its own dramas and drunkenness. No one was paying any attention to them. Even so, when next he spoke, his voice was hushed: ‘We do not operate like that. Either an individual is committed to the cause, or he is not. The motivation must come from within and must be capable of withstanding every discouragement.’
Virginsky’s crumpled expression suggested that he was far from being up to that challenge.
Perhaps the man took pity on him; certainly, his expression was contemptuous. ‘My name is Alyosha Afanasevich.’
Virginsky tracked his implacable back as he left the tavern.
The name-day celebration
Alyosha Afanasevich set a brisk pace, zig-zagging east from Haymarket Square in the direction of the Moskovskaya District. It was all Virginsky could do to keep up, but he was determined not to let the man out of his sight. Alyosha Afanasevich had not, in fact, explicitly consented to take Virginsky to the party, but neither had he flatly refused. Since leaving the tavern, he had not addressed a single word to Virginsky, ignoring the questions that Virginsky fired at his back. All this, together with the speed of his march across the city, could be taken as an indication that he was trying to shake Virginsky off. Certainly, Virginsky had the impression that the man would not have turned a hair if he had simply stopped following him. But he himself could not bear the thought of losing Alyosha Afanasevich.
They walked along the northern embankment of the Fontanka, passing the riverside facade of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The sight of the building reminded Virginsky of an earlier case, the first that he had worked on with Porfiry Petrovich. There would come a time, he imagined, when every building in St Petersburg would bring to mind one case or another.
It was a clear, mild night: under different circumstances, one for ambling unhurriedly alongside the river, anticipating the pleasures of the white nights that lay only a couple of months ahead. But this was no romantic stroll.
The force of the pace, coupled with the vodka he had drunk, was causing Virginsky to overheat. Despite his indulgence over the last two nights, Virginsky was not a habitual drinker. He welcomed the exercise as an opportunity to clear his head.
As Alyosha Afanasevich turned right onto the Chernyshov Bridge, Virginsky put on a spurt to draw level with him. Their footsteps reverberated over the arching stonework. ‘Isn’t it a bit strange, you fellows celebrating name days? I thought you urged the desecration and destruction of everything connected with the Church. Name days, after all, are Orthodox festivals.’
As their feet came down on the other side of the bridge, Virginsky at last succeeded in provoking a response from his companion. It was perhaps not the one he would have hoped for: ‘Once again you reveal your naivety through your remarks. I hope you do not say anything so foolish when we are at my friends’ apartment. Indeed, it would be best if you did not say anything at all.’
‘Will your friends not think me rude?’
‘I will tell them you are a mute.’
‘Would it not be better to educate me as to why my question was so foolish? Then I will guard against making similar mistakes in the future. To me, it seemed a perfectly reasonable question, bearing in mind the manifesto that you once gave me. To mark the saint’s day corresponding to one’s name — one’s Christian name — does seem a little at odds with the notion of God the Nihilist, do you not think?’
Alyosha Afanasevich gave a heavy sigh. ‘Naturally we do not celebrate name days as devout Orthodox Christians celebrate them. Indeed, amongst ourselves we do not use the names our parents gave us at all. We have given one another new names, names more in keeping with our roles and our destinies. And you may take it from me that we do not give a damn for the calendar of saints’ days.’
‘What is yours?’
‘What?’
‘The name that your friends have given you? I take it they do not call you Alyosha Afanasevich.’
‘No. To my friends, I am Hunger.’
‘Hunger?’
‘It is not a reference to physical hunger, to the hunger of appetite, but rather to my hunger for the revolution.’
‘I see.’
‘Mine is the hunger of the flame.’
‘Yes. Quite. But why then are we going to a name-day party?’
‘Because it is not a name-day party.’
‘What is it then?’
‘A pretext.’
‘Ah, I see.’ Virginsky nodded his approval. His eyes widened as if in excitement, but he said nothing, and indeed kept silent for the rest of the way.
*
Alyosha Afanasevich led them to a four-storey stone apartment building at the corner of Kuznechny Lane and Yamskaya Street. The neighbourhood was noticeably run-down. Not surprisingly: the Moskovskaya District was a predominantly working-class area, with a high proportion of peasant workers, migrants from the villages. Somehow, the dreariness of the area reflected the fact that the majority of its inhabitants were men living without women.
The nearby shops were all shuttered up, reminding Virginsky that there was also a significant Jewish population in Moskovskaya District. It was Friday, the Sabbath. While many of the shops on Nevsky Prospect might keep late hours tonight, those in Moskovskaya would not.
A few steps led down to the entrance of the building, below the level of the street. The porter nodded Alyosha Afanasevich in, as if he were a regular visitor.
They took the stairs up to the second floor. In truth, the interior of the building was better kept than Virginsky had been led to expect from the air of general neglect outside. The doors of the apartments they passed were all closed, presenting blank, demure rectangles of respectability. Perhaps they were the apartments of Jewish families, devoutly observing the Sabbath within. But even the door to the apartment they were visiting was closed.
‘This doesn’t look like the apartment of someone who is celebrating a name day,’ Virginsky observed, as they waited for Hunger’s complicated series of knocks to be answered. He thought he could detect the murmur of voices within, tense rather than celebratory. ‘If you wish to construct a pretext, you should do so more carefully.’
‘We cannot afford to admit all and sundry.’
‘Then it is clearly not a Russian party.’
‘It is intended to be an intimate gathering of close friends.’
The door began to move, drawing Virginsky’s attention. He felt the thump of apprehension in his chest, sensing that he was standing at the threshold, not simply to an apartment in the Moskovskaya District but to a formless and irresistible abyss — to the future, in other words.
The face that greeted him, if such a look of hostility and suspicion could be said to be any kind of greeting, was elusively familiar to him. After a moment’s concentration, he recognised the young ‘Bazarov’ who had discussed the physiology of the heart with Porfiry Petrovich at the office of Affair. Without opening the door to its full extent, the young man turned sullenly to Virginsky’s companion. ‘This man is a magistrate. Why have you brought him here? Have you betrayed us, Botkin?’
‘Don’t be stupid.’
Virginsky was struck by the fact that ‘Bazarov’ had used neither Alyosha Afanasevich nor Hunger in addressing the man.