It was an immense city in which they lived: Petrov, clerk in a
commercial bank, and he, the other,—name unknown.
They used to meet once a year, at Easter, when they both went to pay a
visit at one and the same house, that of the Vasilyevskys. Petrov used
to pay a visit also at Christmas, but probably the other, whom he used
to meet, came at Christmas at a different hour, and so they did not see
one another. The first two or three times Petrov did not notice him
among so many visitors, but the fourth year his face seemed known to
him and they greeted one another with a smile—and the fifth year Petrov
proposed to clink glasses with him.
“Your health!” he said politely, and held out his glass.
“Here’s to yours!” the other replied with a smile, and he too held out
his glass.
Petrov did not think of asking his name, and when he went out into the
street he quite forgot his existence, and the whole year never thought
of him again. Every day he went to the bank, where he had been employed
for nine years; in the winter he occasionally went to the theatre; in
the summer he visited at the bungalow of an acquaintance; and twice he
was ill with the influenza—the second time immediately before Easter.
And just as he was mounting the stairs at the Vasilyevskys’, in evening
dress and with his opera-hat under his arm, he remembered that he would
see him there, the other, and felt very much surprised that he could
not in the least recall his face and figure. Petrov himself was below
the average height and somewhat round-shouldered, so that many took him
for a hunchback; he had large black eyes with yellowish whites. In
other respects he did not differ from the rest, who paid a visit to the
Vasilyevskys twice a year, and when they forgot his surname they used
to speak of him as the “little hunchback.”
He, the other, was already there, and on the point of going away; but
when he recognized Petrov, he smiled politely, and remained. He was
also in evening dress and had an opera-hat, and Petrov failed to
examine him further since he was occupied with talking, and eating, and
drinking tea.
They went out together, and helped one another on with their coats,
like friends: they politely made way the one for the other, and each
gave the porter a half-rouble. They stood still a short time in the
street, and then he, the other, said:
“Well, tipping”s become a regular tax. But it can’t be helped.”
Petrov replied:
“Yes, quite true.”
And since there was nothing more to be said, they smiled in a friendly
manner, and Petrov said:
“Which way are you going?”
“I turn to the left. And you?”
“I to the right.”
In the cab Petrov remembered that he had again failed either to ask his
name, or to observe him particularly. He turned round: carriages were
passing in both directions, the pavements were black with pedestrians,
and in that closely moving mass it was as impossible to distinguish
him, the other, as to find a particular grain of sand amongst other
grains. And again Petrov forgot him, and did not think of him again for
a whole year.
Petrov had lived for many years in the same furnished apartments, and
he was not much liked there, because he was grumpy and irritable; and
they also called him behind his back “Humpty.” He used often to sit in
his apartment alone, and none knew what work he did, since Fedot, the
upstairs servant, did not look on books and letters as “work.” At night
Petrov sometimes went for a walk, and Ivan the porter could not
understand these walks, since Petrov always returned sober, and—alone.
But Petrov used to walk about at night, because he was very much afraid
of the city in which he lived, and he feared it more than ever in the
daytime, when the streets were full of people.
The city was immense and populous, and there was in its populousness
and immensity something stubborn, unconquerable, and callously cruel.
With the colossal weight of its bloated stone houses, it crushed the
earth on which it stood; and the streets between the houses were
narrow, crooked, and deep like fissures in a rock. It seemed as though
they were all seized with a panic of fear, and were endeavouring to run
away from the centre to the open country, and that they could not find
the road, and losing their way had rolled themselves in a ball like a
serpent, and were intersecting one another, and looking back in
hopeless despair.
One might walk for hours about these streets, which seemed broken-down,
choked, and faint with a terrible convulsion, and never emerge from the
line of fat stone houses. Some high, others low, some flushed with the
cold thin blood of new bricks, others painted with a dark or light
colour, they stood in unswaying solidity on both sides, callously met,
and personally conducted one, and pressing together in a dense crowd,
in this direction and in that, lost their individuality and become like
one another—and the walker grew frightened: it was as though he had
become rooted to the spot, and the houses kept going past him in an
endless truculent file.
Once Petrov was walking quietly about the street, when suddenly he felt
what a thickness of stone houses separated him from the wide, open
country, where the free earth breathed softly in the sunshine, and
man’s eyes might look round to the distant horizon.
It seemed to him that he was suffocating and being blinded, and he felt
a desire to run and get quickly out from the stony embrace—and it
became a horror to him to think, however fast he might run, still
houses, ever houses, would go with him on both sides, and he would be
suffocated before he could run beyond the city. Petrov ensconced
himself in the first restaurant he came across, but even there he
seemed for a long time to be suffocating; so he drank cold water, and
wiped his eyes with his handkerchief.
But the most terrible thing of all was, that in all the houses there
lived human beings, and about all the streets were moving human beings.
There were a multitude of them, and all of them were unknown to
him—strangers; and all of them lived their own separate life, hidden
from the eyes of others; they were without interruption being born, and
dying, and there was no beginning nor end to this stream. Whenever
Petrov went to the bank, or out for a walk, he saw the same familiar,
well-known houses, and everything appeared to him simply an old
acquaintance; if, however, he stood still, but for a moment, to fix his
attention on some face, then all was quickly and terribly changed. With
a feeling of terror and impotence Petrov would look at all the faces,
and understand that he saw them for the first time, that yesterday he
had seen other people, and to-morrow would see yet others; and so
always, every day, and every minute, he would see new, unknown faces.
There was a stout gentleman, at whom Petrov glanced, disappearing round
the corner—and never would Petrov see him again. Even if he wished to
find him, he might search for him all his life, and never succeed.
And Petrov feared the immense, callous city.
This year again Petrov had the influenza, very severely with a
complication, and he was frequently afflicted with cold in the head.
Moreover, the doctor found that he had catarrh of the stomach, and the
next Easter, as he was going to the Vasilyevskys’, he thought on the
way of what he should eat there. When he recognized him, the other, he
was pleased and informed him:
“My dear sir, I have a catarrh.”
He, the other, shook his head sympathetically, and replied:
“You don’t say so!”
And once more Petrov did not inquire his name, but he began to look
upon him as quite an old acquaintance, and thought of him with
pleasurable feelings. “Him,” he named him, but when he wanted to recall
his face, he could only conjure up an evening coat, white waistcoat,
and a smile; and since he could not in the least recollect the face, it
inevitably appeared as though the coat and waistcoat smiled. That
summer Petrov went out very frequently to a certain bungalow, wore a
red neck-tie, dyed his moustache, and said to Fedot that in the autumn
he should change his quarters; but afterwards he gave up going to the
bungalow, and took to drink for a whole month. He managed his drinking
clumsily—with tears and scenes. Once he broke the mirror in his room;
another time he frightened a certain lady. He invaded her apartment in
the evening, fell on his knees and proposed to her. This fair unknown
was a courtesan, and at first listened to him attentively and even
laughed, but when he began to weep and complain of his loneliness, she
took him for a madman, and began to scream with terror. As they led him
away, supporting himself against Fedot, he pulled his hair and cried:
“We are all men, all brethren!”
They had decided to get rid of him; but he gave up drinking, and once
more the porter swore at having to open and shut the door for him. At
New Year Petrov received an increase of 100 roubles _per annum,_ and he
changed into a neighbouring apartment, which was five roubles dearer,
and had windows looking into the courtyard, Petrov thought that there
he would not hear the rumbling of the street traffic, and might even
forget what a multitude of unknown strangers surrounded him, and lived
their own particular lives in proximity to him.
In the winter it was quiet in his rooms, but when spring came, and the
snow was removed from the streets, the rumble of the traffic began
again, and the double walls were no protection from it.
In the daytime, while he was occupied with something, and himself moved
about and made a noise, he did not notice the rumbling, though it never
ceased for a moment; but when night came on and all became quiet in the
house, then the noisy street forced its way into the dark chamber, and
deprived it of all quiet and privacy. The jarring and disjointed sounds
of individual vehicles were heard; an indistinct, slight sound would
come to life somewhere in the distance, grow louder and clearer, and by
degrees lie down again, and in its place would be heard a new one, and
so on and on without intermission. Sometimes only the hoofs of the
horses struck the ground evenly and rhythmically, and there was no
sound of wheels—this was when a calèche went by on rubber tyres; but
often the noise of individual vehicles would blend into a terrible loud
rumble, which made the stone walls tremble slightly, and set the
bottles vibrating in the cupboard. And all this was caused by human
beings! They sat in hired and private carriages, they drove no one knew
whence or whither, they disappeared into the unknown depths of the
immense city, and in their place appeared fresh people, other human
beings, and there was no end to this incessant movement, so terrible in
its incessancy. And every passer-by was a separate microcosm, with his
own rules and aims of life, with his own affinity, whom he loved, with
his own separate joys and sorrows, and each was like a ghost, which
appeared for a moment and then disappeared inexplicably and
unrecognized. And the more people there were, who were unknown to one
another, the more terrible became the solitude of each. And during
those black, rumbling nights Petrov often felt inclined to cry out in
fear, and to betake himself to the deep cellar, in order to be there
perfectly alone. There one might think only of those one knew, and not
feel oneself so infinitely alone among a multitude of strange people.
At Easter, he, the other, did not turn up at the Vasilyevskys’, and
Petrov did not observe his absence until the end of his call, when he
had begun to make his adieux, and failed to meet the well-known smile.
And he felt a disquiet at heart, and suddenly was conscious of a
painful longing to see him, the other, and to say something to him
about his loneliness and his nights. But he had only a very slight
recollection of the man whom he sought; only that he was of middle age,
fair apparently, and always in evening dress; but by this description
the Vasilyevskys could not guess of whom he was speaking.
“So many people pay us a visit on Festivals, that we do not know the
surnames of all,” said Madame. “However——was it Syomenov?”
And she counted one by one on her fingers several surnames: “Smirnov,
Antonov, Nikiphorov;” and then without the surname: “The bald man, in
the civil service, the post office I think; the one with the light
brown hair; the one quite grey.” And none of them were the one after
whom Petrov was inquiring—though they might have been. And so he was
not discovered.
This year nothing particular happened in the life of Petrov, except
that his eyesight deteriorated and he had to take to glasses. At night,
when the weather was fine, he went walking, and chose the quiet,
deserted bye-streets for his peregrinations. But even there people were
to be met, whom he had never seen before, and never would see again;
and the houses towered on either side in a dull wall, and inside they
were full of persons utterly unknown to him, who slept, and talked and
quarrelled: some one was dying behind those walls, and close to him a
fresh human being was coming into the world, to be lost for a time in
its ever-moving infinity, and then to die for ever. In order to console
himself, Petrov would count over all his acquaintances; and their
neighbourly familiar faces were like a wall which separated him from
infinity. He endeavoured to remember all; the porters, shop-keeper,
cabmen that he knew, also passers-by whom he casually remembered; and
at first he seemed to know very many people, but when he began to count
them up, the number became terribly small: all his life long he had
only known 250 people, including him, the other. And these were all who
were known and neighbourly to him in the world. Possibly there were
people whom he had known, and forgotten; but that was just as though
they did not exist.
He, the other, was very glad, when he recognized Petrov the next
Easter. He had a new dress suit on, and new boots which creaked, and he
said as he pressed Petrov”s hand:
“But, you know, I almost died. I was seized with inflammation of the
lungs, and even now there is there”—and he tapped himself on the
side—“something the matter with the upper part, I believe.”
“I’m sorry for you,” said Petrov with sincere sympathy.
They talked about various ailments, and each spoke of his own, and when
they separated they did so with a prolonged pressure of the hand, but
they quite forgot to ask each other’s name. The following Easter it was
Petrov who did not put in an appearance at the Vasilyevskys’, and he,
the other, was much disquieted, and inquired of Madame Vasilyevsky who
the little hunchback was who visited them.
“I know what his surname is,” said she, “it is Petrov.”
“But what are his Christian name and his father’s?”
Madame Vasilyevsky would willingly have told his name, but it seems she
did not know it, and was very much surprised at the fact. Neither did
she know in what office Petrov was, perhaps the post office or some
bank.
The next time he, the other, did not appear.
The time after both came, but at different hours, so they did not meet.
And then they altogether left off putting in an appearance, and the
Vasilyevskys never saw them again, and did not even give them a
thought; for so many people visited them, and they could not possibly
remember them all.
The immense city grew still bigger, and there, where the broad fields
had stretched, irrepressible new streets lengthened out, and on both
sides of them stout, multi-coloured stone houses crushed heavily the
ground on which they stood. And to the seven cemeteries which had
before existed in the city was added a new one, the eighth. In it there
was no greenery at all, and meanwhile they buried in it only paupers.
And when the long autumn night drew on, it became still in the
cemetery, and there reached it only in distant echoes the rumbling of
the street traffic, which ceased not day nor night.