The Cleansing Flames

A new man

He slept on the sofa in the main room of the apartment. More accurately, he lay down on it and closed his eyes intermittently. After a while, it was hard to distinguish between the swirling grey fuzz of the room around him, and the non-dimensioned darkness, streaked with flaring lights, that he entered when he closed his eyes. Both were filled with the ticking of the ormolu clock, meting out the hours with inhuman patience. He found its measured insistence oppressive, and began to wish that Botkin had made good on his threat to destroy it. He self-consciously framed the intention that, before the end of his stay in the apartment, he would smash the infernal clock himself, if no one else did. He laughed wildly into the darkness, his eyes straining with defiance at the boundless obscurity of the night. It seemed that he was capable of anything now. Soon, however, he became irrationally afraid of the clock. He imagined that it had grown to gigantic size, and that its hands were swinging axes, as sharp as guillotine blades. He knew at that moment that he was asleep, and dreaming. And as soon as the realisation struck him, he woke up. The reality of his situation was immediately depressing. He felt trapped, as indeed he was. He imagined eternity as a nocturnal room like this, with an unseen clock tapping relentlessly at the darkness. He began to count the ticks of the clock, and for some reason that made him feel a little better.

He knew that he would not get to sleep again that night. But that decisive realisation was also somehow liberating. He settled down to address the turmoil of his thoughts, without being distracted by the anxieties of insomnia.

Surprisingly, perhaps, he found himself thinking about Prince Dolgoruky; or, more specifically, about his demon. He imagined it there in the room with him, squatting foully on its haunches, leering in the darkness. He could not quite believe in it. When he tried to put a face to it, his mind — peculiarly — supplied the face of Porfiry Petrovich. And so it was a demon with pale, almost translucent skin, with a face as feminine and cunning as a peasant woman’s, with eyes the colour of ice and transparent lashes flickering restlessly over them. He sensed the bulbous prominence at the back of its head, and was repelled by it.

But this demon, it seemed, had the power of metamorphosis, for he saw that its face had changed into that of Alyosha Afanasevich Botkin. And so it was now a hatchet-headed demon, with a wild incendiary stare trapped behind circular spectacle lenses. No sooner had the demon settled into this incarnation than it began to change. Its neck stretched out impossibly. Virginsky’s mind’s eye craned upwards to see the face of Tatyana Ruslanovna Vakhrameva looking down at him with an expression of aloof indifference. This was the Tatyana Ruslanovna of old, the sexually knowing woman-child with the drifting, dangerous gaze. He felt an ache of longing and unhappiness. He knew from her glance that she was utterly unattainable, no matter what crimes he might commit to please her.

He didn’t like to see the demon as Tatyana Ruslanovna. He willed it to assume another form. But the demon seemed to want to torment him, for it held onto Tatyana Ruslanovna’s features with obstinate cruelty.

Of course, at no point did he actually believe that there was a demon there with him in the room. Was that the difference between him and Prince Dolgoruky? he wondered. Virginsky, ever the materialist, knew full well that the demon was simply a product of his own mental processes, that it was something he himself had created, possibly to represent that aspect of himself that was capable of evil. (He took it for granted that he was capable of evil.) Indeed, he had no real sense of the demon as existing outside his mind. Pursuing this impeccably rationalistic analysis, he saw that the projection of other people’s faces onto the demon was an attempt by his unconscious mind to shift the blame for his negative acts onto others.

He shook his head without raising it from the cushion it rested on. Such moral cowardice would not do. He had to take responsibility for his own acts, for all of them. And so he attempted to will his own face onto the demon, for that would be the only honest representation. But even after a conscious, creative effort, he could not make the demon wear his face. It was as if the part of him that had conjured it into being simply refused to countenance such an outcome.

He was growing tired of the demon. He wanted it to be gone. He wanted to prove his mastery over it, over the negative aspects of his personality. And the last face it wore, before it dissolved into the soft grains of night, was that of his old professor, Tatiscev.

*

The walls of the apartment blazed with panels of luminosity, sharp geometric sections of sunlight. A wash of cold pallor spread across the parquet floor.

‘You are to stay in the apartment. Don’t go out. Don’t answer the door. Stay away from the windows, too. You must not be seen by anyone, do you understand?’ Kirill Kirillovich’s habitual look of sour disappointment was momentarily transformed into one of sour disapproval.

Virginsky experienced a nostalgic pang as he contemplated the angled projections of spring. ‘Tatyana Ruslanovna said you are to get me clothes.’

‘There will be time for that later.’

‘But if someone comes to the apartment and I am seen in my civil-service uniform, they are more likely to suspect something. If I am dressed as a workman. .’

‘If you are dressed as a workman, you will convince no one. I have never seen a more unlikely workman.’

‘That was Tatyana Ruslanovna’s wish. It was the wish of the central committee.’

‘Sometimes, like a theologian interpreting the Bible, one must interpret the commands of the central committee. Having done so, I do not feel it is necessary to supply you with the clothes.’

‘But that is not interpretation. It is contradiction. Furthermore, you chose a suspiciously reactionary analogy.’

Kirill Kirillovich regarded Virginsky without enthusiasm. ‘This is all beside the point. I have already told you that you are not to open the door to anyone. What need is there for disguise?’

‘Is there any news of. . of the man I shot?’ The question surprised Virginsky as much as it did Kirill Kirillovich.

‘I don’t know. I haven’t been out yet. I haven’t had a chance to see a newspaper.’ He frowned impatiently and then added, ‘Do you care?’

‘No,’ said Virginsky quickly.

‘You don’t care whether he lives or dies?’

Virginsky felt unsure how to answer, sensing the question was a trap. It will be like this from now on, he thought. ‘No. I really don’t,’ he claimed.

Kirill Kirillovich did not seem to be impressed. ‘I suppose it makes little difference to you now. They will not go any easier on you if he lives. However, as far as the cause of social revolution is concerned, it would be better if he died.’

His wife, Varvara Alexeevna, came into the room as he said this. Her face assumed an uneasy expression. She averted her gaze sadly to the floor and spoke with quiet determination: ‘You know, Kirill Kirillovich, that I share your aspirations concerning the foundation of a more just society in the future. However, I cannot, in all conscience, condone such bloodthirsty sentiments. I spend my days bringing new life into this world. I see what a precarious and treasured thing it is. I will not sit at the breakfast table, fill myself with pancakes and then blithely call for another being’s destruction. The deed is done. Perhaps it was a necessary deed. I don’t know anything about that. But as far as it was a political act, it is complete. The political point has been made. So let us hope that this magistrate survives, as his death adds nothing, and pleases no one, or so I would hope.’

Virginsky felt obscurely shamed by her words.

Kirill Kirillovich sighed. ‘We have talked about this before, Varvara Alexeevna. And as I have had occasion to remark in the past, you must put aside such sentimental prejudices. It is simply not consistent for you to say that you share my aspirations but reject my means — for you know in your heart that there is no other way. The future can only be born out of the destruction of the past. Just as some women inevitably give up their own lives during childbirth, for all your best endeavours.’

The colour rushed to Varvara Alexeevna’s cheeks at this intrusion of the personal. ‘But not all women die in childbirth!’ she protested.

‘No, but those who do. . do. What I mean is that it is inevitable in certain cases. In the same way, it is equally inevitable that some, perhaps many, will have to die before a new order can be established. We cannot prevent it. Therefore we should not lament it.’

‘Only a man could be so glib.’

‘And only a woman could be so. .’ Kirill Kirillovich broke off to consult the ormolu clock. ‘I must go.’

‘What? Only a woman could be so what?’ demanded his wife.

But Kirill Kirillovich only shook his head in sour distraction, as he rose to leave.

*

‘Your husband refused to get me any clothes. The clothes that Tatyana Ruslanovna ordered you to provide for me.’

‘What do you need clothes for? You’re not going anywhere, are you?’

‘Suppose the police come to the apartment.’

‘What good would a change of clothes do you?’

‘I might be able to effect my escape.’

‘And how would you do that? By flying out the window?’

‘If I were in disguise, I might be able to slip past them.’

‘You do not think they will send someone who can recognise you, no matter what clothes you are wearing?’

‘What if it is not the police, but someone who might inform on me?’

‘You are not to open the door to anyone. Is that clear?’

‘If I am to be a prisoner here, then I may as well hand myself in. At least then we will have the political advantage of a trial.’

‘If that is what you wish, I shall not stand in your way.’

‘But it is not what the central committee wishes.’

‘Then do not do it.’

‘So I am to be a prisoner!’

‘My friend,’ began Varvara Alexeevna more gently, ‘we are all prisoners. It is simply that when you put yourself outside the law, outside society, your imprisonment becomes visible. You notice it for the first time, and you rail against it.’

‘I thought I would become free.’

‘Yes, and that is what makes it all the harder to endure.’

‘I would feel better if I could wear some different clothes. Safer.’ After a moment, Virginsky added, ‘These are the clothes I was wearing when I shot him.’

Virginsky’s voice had taken on a distant quality, half wistful, half appalled. He seemed chastened. This proved decisive to Varvara Alexeevna. ‘You may help yourself to my husband’s clothes.’ She looked him up and down, her gaze softly scrutinising. ‘You are about the same size, you and he.’

‘But he is not a workman,’ objected Virginsky. ‘Tatyana Ruslanovna said I was to be given a workman’s clothes.’

‘No, he is not a workman. He is a skilled engineer.’ Varvara Alexeevna’s head tilted sharply with pride. ‘Tatyana Ruslanovna also said you were to grow a beard. How are you getting on with that?’ Varvara Alexeevna’s tone was gently mocking.

‘I intend to devote all my energies to it.’ Virginsky smiled. ‘I fear I will have little else to do.’

Varvara Alexeevna’s expression suddenly darkened. ‘You are a cold-blooded man,’ she said. ‘You frighten me more than the others. They have no experience of the things they dream about. But you. . you raised a gun at one of your colleagues and fired. And here you are, a day later, calmly sitting down to breakfast and arguing about a suit of clothes. Are you really not afraid that he might die, and that the sin of his murder will be on your soul?’

Virginsky thought for a long time before replying: ‘I do not believe in the soul.’

Varvara Alexeevna shuddered and quickly put on her shawl. ‘Yes, of course. None of us believes in the soul, these days. Or at least that is what we profess. To be able to act on such a profession, however — that is a different matter.’ Varvara Alexeevna stared at the floor for a moment before continuing. ‘I must go out.’

‘I hope I am not driving you from your own apartment?’

The look she gave him was not reassuring. ‘There is tea in the samovar if you need it. I believe you will find some bread for lunch. I trust we shall see you later.’

She closed the door behind her with unseemly alacrity. It shocked Virginsky to realise that she was afraid to be in the apartment alone with him. He frowned as he listened to the sound of her locking him in.