A private closed carriage, fitted with winter runners, was pulled up just in front of the bridge. The horses stamped and snorted, their eyes bulging with wild indignation. The liveried driver took a sly swig from a flask. Inside, a dark, indeterminate figure sat motionless and withdrawn.
As Porfiry stepped onto the bridge, he felt his feet slide from under him. A firm hand caught him under the armpit and prevented him from falling. It was hard to see solicitude in Salytov’s expression. He unhanded Porfiry quickly, as though with some distaste.
Now that he was in among them, Porfiry could tell that it was more than fascination that held the onlookers. A kind of profane and callous awe was evident in their faces. They were mostly poor folk, servants, seamstresses, prostitutes, ragpickers, and low-grade civil servants, shivering with grim excitement in threadbare coats. It seemed that for the moment they had found relief from their own misery by contemplating the fate of someone worse off than themselves. And yet there was a sense of community, solidarity even, in their gaze. Although the victim was in all probability a stranger to them, it seemed they took the death personally, and they directed sly, resentful glances toward the waiting carriage. At the same time, however, a flicker of triumph, which they could not suppress but dared not acknowledge, showed in their eyes. It was the triumph of the living over the dead, and for the moment that they were possessed by it, there was no room for any other feeling, not even pity.
Their shoulders, as Porfiry and Salytov pushed through them, were hard but unresisting. Salytov negotiated briskly with the polizyeisky, who seemed both relieved and embarrassed to see them. “They are like dogs, sir. Like dogs in heat,” he explained, gesturing to the crowd.
Salytov got details of the accident from a witness whom the polizyeisky had detained, a cavalry officer who happened to be on the bridge at the time. His rank and bearing lent authority to his account, and there was an immediate understanding between the two men. He spoke clearly and unhurriedly, neither agitated nor bored. He had seen worse, was the impression he gave, but he recognized the necessity of due process and was respectful of that, if not of the dead. It seemed he felt more pity for the horses than for the trampled man.
Porfiry paid only scant attention to the officer and found himself looking at the obscure figure in the closed carriage. Finally he walked over. The black and highly polished lacquer of the coach’s bodywork shone impenetrably. It reflected back the tragedy of the day, without allowing it to touch the passenger within. Porfiry looked through the window. A girl of about nineteen or twenty stared back at him. The spreading bulk of her furs set off the fine, haughty beauty of her face. Her expression communicated outrage at Porfiry’s presumed insolence.
For an instant he wanted to drag her out of the carriage and manhandle her over to where he knew the dead man lay. Instead he simply bowed his head and looked down at the family crest laid in gold leaf on the carriage door.
He turned away and, at last, surmounted the crest of the bridge. With sudden decisiveness, as if to emphasize the independence of his actions, he looked down.
Inevitably, his gaze went first to the head, which had exploded like a trampled fruit. The snow around the sprawl of flesh, bone, hair, and brains was a dirty pink slush. Madly, Porfiry stared at the mangled center of this dark vortex, as if he really believed he would be able to recognize Virginsky’s features there. And when he could not, he cast about desperately over the rest of the body. All the limbs had a rag-bag casualness to them, as if they had been arranged by someone in a hurry, or with only a partial understanding of how the human body fitted together. Even the shape of the dark overcoat failed to impose any form or coherence.
At the bottom of the coat, two brown, worn boots, cracked uppers and gaping soles advertising their antiquity, projected at impossible angles.
Porfiry’s heart began to pound. But then he felt a guilty sickness at his own jubilant excitement. Here was a man driven to death by poverty and despair, or possibly in an alcoholic stupor, which amounted to the same thing. He deserved better than Porfiry’s selfish relief.
Suddenly, from a clear sky, it began to snow.
Porfiry turned his back on the dead man and broke into a brisk walk away from the bridge. This time it was Salytov who had to hurry to keep up.
Wild Surmises
The brightly painted facades of the wine cellars and delicatessens on the Nevsky Prospect beckoned cheerily. Porfiry felt a fleeting, childish wonder at the oversize representations of grapes, charcuterie, and caviar. All he wanted to do was go inside one of those shops and never come out.
Instead he went into the three-story office building on the corner of the Nevsky Prospect and Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street, across from the Lutheran church.
He declined the wiry commissionaire’s offer to escort him to the office of Athene Publishing.
He didn’t wait for his single, sharp knuckle rap to be answered but went straight in, signaling to Salytov to wait outside. Osip Maximovich Simonov, seated at his desk, looked up over his spectacles. Their lenses shone, veiling his eyes with a film of silver. There was not a speck on his black frock coat. His beard had a sculptural perfection to it, and his long hair presented a helmetlike solidity. His neatness went deep.
“May I sit down?” Porfiry bowed from the waist as he made the request.
The other man nodded guardedly.
Porfiry took a seat on the other side of the desk and fixed Osip Maximovich steadily. “I’d like to get to know you better, Osip Maximovich. I feel we have a lot in common.”
“You do?”
“Yes. I was educated at a seminary as well, you know.”
“Indeed? I didn’t know.”
“Couldn’t you tell?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it.”
“I will never forget the monks who taught me.”
“Of course.”
“I sometimes wonder if they would remember me.”
Osip Maximovich seemed to shrug.
“I like to think they would,” continued Porfiry.
“I’m sure you were a memorable youth.”
“Yes, but I’m a man now, am I not? The thing is, would they think of the child now when they saw the man?”
“Possibly. Possibly not. Porfiry Petrovich, I hate to-”
“I will never forget what they taught me too.”
“Then your education wasn’t wasted.”
“I was thinking more of my moral education.”
“I too.” Osip Maximovich’s smile revealed his straining patience.
“Do you believe in the soul, Osip Maximovich?”
“You already know that I am a believer.”
“Then I am afraid for you.”
“Please don’t be.”
“My friend Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky claims he doesn’t believe in the soul.”
“I’m surprised to hear you describe such a fellow as your friend.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Oh, I know all about Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky,” said Osip Maximovich quickly. “I know all about his addiction to laudanum. And his habit of stealing other people’s possessions to pawn them. I also know about that blasphemous contract he drew up with Goryanchikov.”
“You do?”
“Yes, Goryanchikov showed it to me.”
“An interesting document, wouldn’t you say?”
“Such a man is capable of anything.”
“Why?”
“Because he has no soul. He has surrendered it to another.”
“But if you don’t believe in the soul-as Virginsky did not-it follows that you don’t believe in the contract,” said Porfiry. “Such a document is meaningless. In fact, it only makes sense if you are a believer.”