14
PARTISAN REVIEW
he was no more than a shadow, massive yet nimble. From a dis–
tance, he looked like a bear.
A light icy mist obscured the moonlight, permitting only an
intense, grey, diffused phosphorescence to pierce through. A limit–
less landscape stretched away from the middle of the Neva. On the
two circular banks, as on the edge of a lunar crater, the
fa~ades
of the palaces shaded off in dull, soft blacks, like the colorless
radiance of the bottom of the sea. A little to the right, behind the
high granite rampart of the quay, in the center of a square bor–
dered with columns, a bronze giant, his horse rearing on the top
of a rock, was unseeingly crushing to earth a serpent, also of
bronze. His hand was stretched out toward the sea, the north, the
pole. The face was Peter's, large, forceful, with a small insignifi–
cant moustache.
Vadime Mikhailovitch carried his scholar's ration, received
at the University, after two hours of tedious waiting among the
other academicians: one pound of herrings, one pound of oatmeal,
two pounds of millet, and two boxes of second rate cigarettes. He
readjusted the straps of the sack which were cutting his shoulders
and said:
"Look, Parfenov. We were born out of our time. Night on
the river has been like this for centuries. Centuries will pass and
night will be the same. Some two hundred and twenty years ago,
even before Peter had come, five thatched log huts, somewhere
along this bank, were carried away. Seven men-for only the
males were counted-with their women and their little ones, toiled
here. Seven men, come, like their unknown ancestors, from the
east. That village was called lenissari."
"But Peter came," said Parfenov. "And now we have come.
How happy men will be in a hundred years! Sometimes, when I
think of it, my head whirls! In fifty years, in twenty years, in ten
years, perhaps,-yes! give us ten years and you'll see!-the cold,
the night, everything ... (Everything?-what did he mean by this
word, vague, but vaster than the cold or the night?) .•. everything
will be conquered."
They walked for a moment in silence. The other bank came
imperceptibly nearer.
What an enthusiast Parfenov is! Lytaev smiled in the dark–
ness at the myths which have swayed men throughout history.
