J.M. Coetzee - The Master of Petersburg

'That's enough,' says Anna Sergeyevna. She gives her daughter a kiss on the forehead. 'Time to sleep.' She draws the curtain shut.

Five minutes later she is in his room, bringing with her the flag, folded small. 'Explain yourself,' she says.

'What you have there is the flag of the People's Vengeance. It is the flag of insurrection. If you want me to tell you what the colours stand for, I will tell you. Or ask Matryona herself, I'm sure she knows. I can think of no act more provocative and more incriminating than to display it. Matryona spread it out in my room in my absence, where the police could see it. I don't understand what has got into her. Has she gone mad?'

'Don't use that word about her! She had no idea the police were coming. As for this flag, if it causes so much trouble I will take it away at once and burn it.'

'Burn it?' He stands astonished. How simple! Why did he not burn the blue dress?

'But let me tell you,' she adds, 'that is to be the end of the matter, the absolute end. You are drawing Matryona into affairs that are no concern of a child's.'

'I could not agree with you more. But it is not I who am drawing her in. It is Nechaev.'

'That makes no difference. If you were not here there would be no Nechaev.'

It has snowed heavily during the night. Emerging into the open, he is dazzled by the sudden whiteness. He halts and crouches, overtaken by a sensation of spinning not from left to right but from above to below. If he tries to move, he feels, he will pitch forward and tumble.

This can only be the prelude to a fit. In spells of dizziness and palpitations of the heart, in exhaustion and irritability, a fit has been announcing itself for days without arriving. Unless the entire state in which he lives can be called a fit.

Standing at the entrance to No. 63, preoccupied with what is happening inside him, he hears nothing till his arm is gripped tight. With a start he opens his eyes. He is face to face with Nechaev.

Nechaev grins, showing his teeth. His carbuncles are livid from the cold. He tries to tug himself free, but his captor only holds him closer.

'This is foolhardy,' he says. 'You should have left Petersburg while you could. You will certainly be caught.'

With one hand gripping his upper arm and the other his wrist, Nechaev turns him. Side by side, like a reluctant dog and its master, they walk down Svechnoi Street.

'But perhaps what you secredy want is to be caught.'

Nechaev wears a black cap whose flaps shake as he shakes his head. He speaks in a patient, sing-song tone. 'You are always attributing perverse motives to people, Fyodor Mikhailovich. People are not like that. Think about it: why should I want to be caught and locked away? Besides, who is going to look twice at a couple like us, father and son out for a walk?' And he turns upon him a distinctly good-humoured smile.

They have reached the end of Svechnoi; with a light pressure Nechaev guides him to the right.

'Have you any idea what your friend is going through?'

'My friend? You mean the Finnish girl? She will not break, I have confidence in her.'

'You would not say so if you had seen her.'

'You have seen her?'

'The police brought her to the apartment to point me out.'

'Never mind, I have no fear for her, she is brave, she will do her duty. Did she have a chance to speak to your landlady's little girl?'

'To Matryona? Why should she?'

'No reason, no reason. She likes children. She is a child herself: very simple, very straight.'

'I was questioned by the police. I will be questioned again. I concealed nothing. I will conceal nothing. I am warning you, you cannot use Pavel against me.'

'I don't need to use Pavel against you. I can use you against yourself.'

They are in Sadovaya Street, in the heart of the Haymarket. He digs in his heels and stops. 'You gave Pavel a list of people you wanted killed,' he says.

'We have talked about the list already – don't you remember? It was one of many lists. Many copies of many lists.'

'That is not my question. I want to know – '

Nechaev throws back his head and laughs. A gust of vapour leaves his mouth. 'You want to know whether you are included!'

'I want to know whether that was why Pavel fell out with you – because he saw I was marked down, and refused.'

'What a preposterous idea, Fyodor Mikhailovich! Of course you are not on any list! You are much too valuable a person. Anyhow, between ourselves, it makes no difference what names go on the lists. What matters is that they should know reprisals are on their way, and quake in their boots. The people understand something like that, and approve. The people aren't interested in individual cases. From time immemorial the people have suffered; now the people demand that they should have a turn to suffer. So don't worry. Your time hasn't come. In fact, we would be happy to have the collaboration of persons like yourself.'

'Persons like me? What persons are like me? Do you expect me to write pamphlets for you?'

'Of course not. Your talent is not for pamphlets, you are too sincere for that. Come, let us walk. I want to take you somewhere. I want to sink a seed in your soul.'

Nechaev takes his arm, and they resume their walk down Sadovaya Street. Two officers in the olive-green greatcoats of the Dragoons approach. Nechaev yields the way, cheerfully raising a hand in salute. The officers nod.

'I have read your book Crime and Punishment,' he resumes. 'It was that that gave me the idea. It is an excellent book. I have never read anything like it. There were times when it frightened me. Raskolnikov's illness and so forth. You must have heard it praised by many people. Still, I am telling you – ' He claps a hand to his breast, then, as though tearing out his heart, flings the hand forward. The oddity of his own gesture seems to strike him, for he blushes.

It is the first uncalculated act he has seen from Nechaev, and it surprises him. A virgin heart, he thinks, bewildering itself in its stirrings. Like that creature of Doctor Frankenstein's, coming to life. He feels a first touch of pity for this stiff, unprepossessing young man.

They are deep in the Haymarket now. Through narrow streets jammed with hucksters' tables and barrows, through a throng of smelly humanity, Nechaev conducts him.

In a doorway they halt. From his pocket Nechaev draws a blue woollen scarf. 'I must ask you to submit to being blindfolded,' he says.

'Where are you taking me?'

'There is something I want to show you.'

'But where are you taking me?'

'To where I at present live, among the people. It will be easier for both of us. You will be able to report in good conscience that you do not know where to find me.'

With the blindfold on, he is able to fall back into the luxury of dizziness. Nechaev leads him; he is knocked and jostled by passers-by; once he loses his footing and has to be helped up.

They turn off the street into a courtyard. From a tavern comes singing, the tinkling of a guitar, shouts of merriment. There is a smell of drains and fish-offal.

His hand is guided to a rail. 'Mind your step,' says Nechaev's voice. 'It's so dark here, it wouldn't help to take the blindfold off anyway.'

He shuffles down the steps like an old man. The air is dank and still. From somewhere comes the slow drip of water. It is like going into a cave.

'Here,' says Nechaev. 'Mind your head.'

They halt. He removes the blindfold. They are at the foot of an unlit wooden staircase. Before them is a closed door. Nechaev raps four times, then three. They wait. There is no sound but the dripping of water. Nechaev repeats the code. No response. 'We'll have to wait,' he says. 'Come.'