Chapter 2 Chapter 1 Petersburg

October 1869.A buggy is driving slowly on a street in the Haymarket area of ​​St. Petersburg.In front of a tall tenement house, the coachman reined in the horses. The passenger looked suspiciously at the house and asked, "Are you sure this place is nice?" "No. 63, Candle Street, is the place you mentioned." Passengers get out of the car.He was past middle age, bearded, stooped, with a broad forehead and bushy eyebrows that gave him an air of self-possession and self-absorption.The gray suit he was wearing was out of style. "Wait here for me," he said to the coachman.

Some houses in Moshi City are relatively old, with mottled and peeling walls, and still retain the old style, but most of them have become boarding houses for civil servants, students and working people.Some wooden buildings were built in the space between the houses, some were built on the outer walls of other houses, those buildings were rickety, some had two floors, some even had three floors, like pigeon coops Overcrowded, it is the dwelling of the poorest families. No. 63 is an old house with such wooden buildings on both sides.In fact, the beams and pillars of the house's façade crossed halfway up the waist, stretching it densely like a spider's web.Birds had nested in the corners of the reinforcements, and the façade was stained with guano.

A group of children were playing in the street, climbing up pillars, throwing stones into puddles in the street, jumping down to pick them up, and interrupting their play when they noticed a stranger approaching.The youngest of the three was a boy, and the fourth, who seemed to be their leader, was a woman with fair hair and strangely black eyes. "Good afternoon," greeted the stranger. "Does any of you know where Anna Sergeyevna Korenkina lives?" The boys said nothing, just stared at him.After a while, the girl put down the stone in her hand and said, "Come with me."

On the third floor of No. 63, interconnected rooms branched out from the platform at the stairway.The passage was dark and winding, with the smell of cabbage and beef stew. He followed the little girl, passed a public bathroom, and came to a gray painted door. The little girl pushed the door open. The long, low room had only one head-high window.A thick tapestry hung on the longest wall, making the room even darker.A woman in black rose to meet him.She was in her mid-thirties, with the same dark eyes and bushy eyebrows as a girl, but her hair was black. "Forgive my unannounced visit," he said. "My surname is..." He hesitated. "I think my son was once your lodger."

He took out something wrapped in a white handkerchief from his travel bag and unwrapped it.Inside was a daguerreotype in a silver frame. "You might know him," he said.He didn't give her the photo. "It's Pavel Alexandrovitch, mother," the girl whispered. "Yes, he lived here," said the woman. "I'm sorry." There was a moment of awkward silence. "He moved in in April," she resumed talking. "His room is just as he left it, and his belongings have not been touched, except for a few items taken by the police. Would you like to see?"

"Yeah," he said hoarsely. "If the rent is not paid, of course I will be responsible." His son's room, though just a cabin cut off from the apartment house, had its own door and a window facing the street.The bed was perfectly made, and besides the bed there was a chest of drawers, a small desk with a lamp, and a chair.At the foot of the bed was a suitcase with the initials of PAI embossed on the leather.He knew the box: it was his gift to Pavel. He went to the window and looked out.The carriage was still waiting below. "Can you do something for me?" he asked the little girl. "You tell the coachman he can go and pay him the money, will you?"

The child took the money he gave and went downstairs. "If you don't mind, I want to be alone for a while," he said to the woman. After the woman left, he immediately lifted the coverlet.Sheets are new.He knelt down and put his nose to the pillow; but all he could smell was soap and laundry.He opened the drawers of the chest of drawers.The drawer is empty. He lifted the suitcase and put it on the bed.On top of the box was a set of neatly folded white cotton clothes.He pressed his forehead to his clothes.A faint scent of his son entered his nostrils.He inhaled and inhaled deeply, thinking: His ghost is inside me.

He dragged the chair to the window and sat down, looking out.The twilight outside was growing darker.There was no one on the street.As time passed, his thoughts stood still.Reflection, yes, he thought, this state is probably reflection.The head is heavy, the eyes are heavy: the soul seems to be filled with lead. The woman, Anna Sergeyevna, was having dinner with her daughter, and they were sitting opposite each other across the table, with a lamp between them.They broke off their conversation when he entered the room. "Do you know who I am?" he said. She stared at him, waiting for him to speak.

"I mean, do you know that my name is not Isayev?" "We know. We know about Pavel." "I'll leave after saying a few words, and I won't disturb your dinner. Is it okay to put the suitcase here temporarily? I will pay the rent until the end of the month. Actually, let me also pay the rent for November in advance. If you have no other agreement , I wish to keep this room." He paid her the money, twenty rubles. "You don't mind if I come here occasionally in the afternoon? Is there anyone in the house during the day?" She hesitated.She exchanged a look with the child.He thought she was going to change her mind.She wished he had better take the box away and never come back, that the dead tenant would be over and the room would be free.She did not want this unhappy, sad man to come to her house.But it was too late, he paid the rent and she took it.

"Matryosha is at home this afternoon," she said quietly. "I can give you a key. Could you please come in and out by your own door? The door between the tenant's room and this room is not locked, but we don't usually use it." "Sorry, I didn't know just now." Matt Leona. He wandered the familiar streets of Hay City for an hour.Then he crossed the Kokushkin Bridge and returned to the inn where he had checked in earlier that day under the name Isayev. He doesn't feel hungry.He lay on the bed with his clothes folded, trying to sleep for a while.But his thoughts went back to his son's room at No. 63.There were no curtains in the room.Moonlight shines on the bed.He stood in the doorway, holding his breath, staring intently at the chair in the corner, waiting for the darkness to harden into another kind of darkness—the darkness of existence.He moved his lips silently, as if wanting to pronounce his son's name, three times, four times.

He seemed to be reciting a spell.But whom to subdue: the ghost, or himself?He thought of the story of Orpheus, the singer stepping backward, whispering the name of the dead woman, to call her back from Hades; His eyes were fixed on him, and he stretched his arms forward weakly, as if sleepwalking.No harp, no flute, just the word, the repeated word.After death cuts all ties, the name remains.Through baptism, the soul is hooked to a name, which will be carried to eternity.He silently said the name again: Pavel. He began to feel dizzy. "I must go," he whispered, or thought he did; "I'll be back." I'll be back: He made the same promise when he sent his kids to school for the first time.You will not be abandoned.In fact, he was dumped. He fell asleep in a daze, feeling as if he was following a big waterfall, throwing himself into the pool recklessly.