“It was the dream of a Tartar; it was true nihilism
pushed to extreme practical conclusions. It was,
in a word, the applied philosophy of chance, the indeterminateism
of anarchy. Monstrous it may be, but grand in
its monstrosity.
“And you must note, that the man of action who
was so despised by the Countess, discovered in Bakounine
the gigantic dreamer whom I have just shown you, and
his dream did not remain a dream, but began to be
realized. It was by the care of that organizer
that the Nihilistic party assumed a body; a party
in which there is a little of everything, you know;
but on the whole, a formidable party, on account of
the advanced guard in true Nihilism, whose object
is nothing less than to destroy the Western world,
to see it blossom from under the ruins of a general
dispersion, which is the last conception of modern
Tartarism.
“I never saw Bakounine again, for the Countess’s
conquest would have been too dearly bought by any
attempt to act a comedy with this Old-Man-of-the-Mountains.
And besides that, after this visit, poor Countess
Satan appeared to me quite silly. Her famous Satanism
was nothing but the flicker of a spirit-lamp, after
the general conflagration of which the other had dreamt,
and she had certainly shown herself very silly, when
she could not understand that prodigious monster.
And as she had seduced me, only by her intellect and
her perversity, I was disgusted as soon as she laid
aside that mask. I left her without telling her
of my intention, and never saw her again, either.
“No doubt they both took me for a spy from the
Third section of the Imperial Chancellery.
In that case, they must have thought me very strong
to have resisted, and all I have to do is to look out,
if any affiliated members of their society recognize
me!...”
Then he smiled, and turning to the waiter who had
just come in, he said: “Meanwhile, open
us another bottle of champagne, and make the cork pop!
It will, at any rate, somewhat accustom us to the day
when we shall all be blown up with dynamite ourselves.”
Every Friday, regularly, at about eleven o’clock
in the morning, he came into the courtyard, put down
his soft hat at his feet, struck a few chords on his
guitar and then began a ballad in his full, rich voice.
And soon at every window in the four sides of that
dull, barrack-like building, some girls appeared,
one in an elegant dressing gown, another in a little
jacket, most of them with their breasts and arms bare,
all of them just out of bed, with their hair hastily
twisted up, their eyes blinking in the sudden blaze
of sunlight, their complexions dull and their eyes
still heavy from want of sleep.
They swayed themselves backwards and forwards to his
slow melody, and gave themselves up to the enjoyment
of it, and coppers, and even silver, poured into the
handsome singer’s hat, and more than one of them
would have liked to have followed the penny which
she threw to him, and to have gone with the singer
who had the voice of a siren, and who seemed to say
to all these amorous girls; “Come, come to my
retreat, where you will find a palace of crystal and
gold, and wreaths which are always fresh, and happiness
and love which never die.”
