I fancied that he knew very well that I wanted to escape, and
that now, for sheer perversity, he would see that I did not. Indeed, he
caught my arm and drew me out of the Market. We passed into the dusky
streets.
"Now, Ivan Andreievitch," he said, "this is very pleasant... very....
You elude me, you know, which is unkind with two so old acquaintances.
Of course I know that you dislike me, and I don't suppose that I have
the highest opinion of _you_, but, nevertheless, we should be interested
in one another. Our common experience...." He broke off with a little
shiver, and pulled his fur coat closer around him.
I knew that all that I wanted was to break away. We had passed quickly
on leaving the Market into some of the meanest streets of Petrograd.
This was the Petrograd of Dostoeffsky, the Petrograd of "Poor Folk" and
"Crime and Punishment" and "The Despised and Rejected."... Monstrous
groups of flats towered above us, and in the gathering dusk the figures
that slipped in and out of the doors were furtive shadows and ghosts. No
one seemed to speak; you could see no faces under the spare pale-flamed
lamps, only hear whispers and smell rotten stinks and feel the snow,
foul and soiled under one's feet.
Pages:
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196