J.M. Coetzee - The Master of Petersburg

'May God have mercy on his soul.

'F. M. Dostoevsky.. 'November 18th, 1869.'

Trembling lightly, he hands over the paper to Nechaev.

'Excellent!' says Nechaev, and passes it to the other man. 'The truth, as seen by a blind man.'

'Print it.'

'Set it,' Nechaev commands the other.

The other gives him a steady interrogative look. 'Is it true?'

'Truth? What is the truth?' Nechaev screams in a voice that makes the whole cellar ring. 'Set it! We have wasted enough time!'

In this moment it becomes clear that he has fallen into a trap.

'Let me change something,' he says. He takes the paper back, crumples it, thrusts it into his pocket. Nechaev makes no attempt to stop him. 'Too late, no recanting,' he says. 'You wrote it, before a witness. We'll print it as I promised, word for word.'

A trap, a devilish trap. He is not after all, as he had thought, a figure from the wings inconveniently intruding into a quarrel between his stepson and Sergei Nechaev the anarchist. Pavel's death was merely the bait to lure him from Dresden to Petersburg. He has been the quarry all the time. He has been lured out of hiding, and now Nechaev has pounced and has him by the throat.

He glares; but Nechaev does not give an inch.

The sun rides low in a pale, clear sky. Emerging from the warren of alleys on to Voznesensky Prospekt, he has to close his eyes; the tumbling dizziness is back, so that he almost longs for the comfort of a blindfold and a guiding hand.

He is tired of the maelstrom of Petersburg. Dresden beckons like an atoll of peace – Dresden, his wife, his books and papers, and the hundred small comforts that make up home, not least among them the pleasure of fresh underwear. And this when, without a passport, he cannot leave! 'Pavel!' he whispers, repeating the charm. But he has lost touch with Pavel and with the logic that tells him why, because Pavel died here, he is tied to Petersburg. What holds him is no longer the memory of Pavel, nor even Anna Sergeyevna, but the pit that has been dug for him by Pavel's betrayer. Turning not left towards Svechnoi Street but right in the direction of Sadovaya Street and the police station, he hopes testily that Nechaev is on his tail, spying on him.

The waiting-room is as crowded as before. He takes his place in the line; after twenty minutes he reaches the desk. 'Dostoevsky, reporting as required,' he says.

'Required by whom?' The clerk at the desk is a young man, not even in police uniform.

He throws up his hands in irritation. 'How can I be expected to know? I am required to report here, now I am reporting.'

'Take a seat, someone will attend to you.'

His exasperation boils over. 'I don't need to be attended to, it is enough that I am here! You have seen me in the flesh, what more do you require? And how can I take a seat when there are no seats?'

The clerk is clearly taken aback by his vehemence; other people in the room are watching him curiously too.

'Write my name down and be finished!' he demands.

'I can't just write down a name,' replies the clerk reasonably. 'How do I know it is your name? Show me your passport.'

He cannot restrain his anger. 'You confiscate my passport and now you demand that I produce it! What insanity! Let me see Councillor Maximov!'

But if he expects the clerk to be overawed by Maxim-ov's name, he is mistaken. 'Councillor Maximov is not available. Best if you take a seat and calm down. Someone will attend to you.'

'And when will that be?'

'How can I say? You are not the only person with troubles.' He gestures toward the crowded room. 'In any event, if you have a complaint, the correct procedure is to submit it in writing. We can't get moving until we have something in writing – something to get our teeth into, so to speak. You sound like a cultured person.

Surely you appreciate that.' And he turns to the next in the line.

There is no doubt in his mind that, if he could see Maximov now, he would trade Nechaev for his passport. If he hesitated at all, it would only be because he is convinced that to be betrayed – and betrayed by him, Dostoevsky – is exactly what Nechaev wants. Or is it worse, is there a further twist? Is it possible that behind the all too many insinuations Nechaev has let fall about his, Dostoevsky's, potential for treachery lies an intent to confuse and inhibit him? At every turn, he feels, he has been outplayed, and outplayed, perhaps, because he wants to be outplayed – outplayed by a player who, from the day he met him or even before then, recognized the pleasure he took in yielding – in being plotted against, ensnared, seduced – and harnessed that knowledge to his own ends. How else can he explain this stupid passivity of his, the half-drugged state of his conscience?

Was it the same with Pavel? Was Pavel in his deepest being a son of his stepfather, seducible by the voluptuous promise of being seduced?

Nechaev spoke of financiers as spiders, but at this moment he feels like nothing so much as a fly in Nechaev's web. He can think of only one spider bigger than Nechaev: the spider Maximov sitting at his desk, smacking his lips, looking ahead to his next prey. He hopes that he will make a meal of Nechaev, will swallow him whole and crush his bones and spit out the dry remnants.

So, after all his self-congratulation, he has sunk to the pettiest vengefulness. How much lower can he fall? He recalls Maximov's remark: blessed, in an age like this, the father of daughters. If there must be sons, better to father them at a distance, like a frog or a fish.

He pictures the spider Maximov at home, his three daughters fussing about him, stroking him with their claws, hissing softly, and against him too feels the acutest resentment.

He has been hoping for a speedy answer from Apollon Maykov; but the concierge is adamant that there has been no message.

'Are you sure my letter was delivered?'

'Don't ask me, ask the boy who took it.'

He tries to find the boy, but no one knows where he is.

Should he write again? If the first appeal reached Maykov and was ignored, will a second appeal not seem abject? He is not yet a beggar. Yet the unpleasant truth is, he is living from day to day on Anna Sergeyevna's charity. Nor can he expect his presence in Petersburg to remain unremarked much longer. The news will get around, if it has not already, and when it does, any of half a dozen creditors could initiate proceedings to have him restrained. His pennilessness would not protect him: a creditor might easily reckon that, in the last resort, his wife or his wife's family or even his writer-colleagues would raise the money to save him from disgrace.

All the more reason, then, to get out of Petersburg! He must recover his passport; if that fails, he must risk travelling on Isaev's papers again.

He has promised Anna Sergeyevna to look in on the sick child. He finds the curtain across the alcove open and Matryona sitting up in bed.

'How are you feeling?' he asks.

She gives no reply, absorbed in her own thoughts.

He comes nearer, puts a hand to her forehead. There are hectic spots on her cheeks, her breathing is shallow, but there is no fever.

'Fyodor Mikhailovich,' she says, speaking slowly and without looking at him, 'does it hurt to die?'

He is surprised at the direction her brooding has taken. 'My dear Matryosha,' he says, 'you are not going to die! Lie down, have a nap, and you will wake up feeling better. In just a few days you will be back at school – you heard what the doctor said.'

But even while he speaks she is shaking her head. 'I don't mean me,' she says. 'Does it hurt – you know -when a person dies?'

Now he knows she is serious. 'At the moment?'

'Yes. Not when you are completely dead, but just before that.'