University of Virginia Library

22. XXII.

"AT-TENTION!" fell on my ear with long drawn cry. "At-tention!" a second answered it from a distance. "At-tention!" a third died away somewhere at the very end of the world. I aroused myself. A lofty gilded spire met my eye, and I recognized the fortress Petropawlowsk.

Pallid, northern night! Is it really night and not rather a wan and sickly day? I have never liked the nights of St. Petersburg, but this time I experienced actual fear; Ellis's features vanished utterly; she melted like a morning mist before July sun, and I saw distinctly my own body as it floated alone in air with all its weight, at a height equal to the Alexander column. So here is St. Petersburg. Yes, not to be mistaken. These gray, broad, empty streets, these whitish-yellow houses, plaster-covered and with plaster peeling from them, with their deep-set windows and glaring sign-boards, with sheet-iron pent-houses over the entrances and the miserable huckster stalls; these gables, inscriptions, sentry boxes; the gilded dome of St. Isaac's Church, the gay Exchange, overloaded with ornament, the granite walls of the fortress; the boats laden with hay or wood, this mingled smell of dust, cabbages, tan, and stables; these hostlers apparently petrified in their sheepskins before the house-doors, and coachmen sound asleep upon their waiting droschkas; yes, it is unmistakably our northern Palmyra. Everything is easily to be recognized; everything is unnaturally distinct and clear, and everything lies in sombre sleep. The twilight glow, a kind of swooning redness, is not yet gone and will not vanish before morning from the white starless heavens; it is reflected in long streaks on the mirror-like surface of the Neva, that hardly seems to move, so quietly its cold blue waters flow.

"Let us fly hence?" Ellis implored me.

And without waiting for an answer she bore me over the Neva to the Palace yard. We heard steps and voices under us, and up the street came a little party of young fellows with haggard faces, still talking over the night's exploits. "Second Lieutenant Stolpatof, No. 7!" called suddenly a half-asleep soldier on watch beside a pile of rusty cannon-balls. Somewhat further, at the open window of a house, I saw a girl in a fanciful silken garb,

sleeveless, with a string of pearls in her hair and a cigarette in her mouth. She was completely absorbed in a book, one of the productions of our latest Juvenal.

"Let us leave this," I said to Ellis.

An instant later and we were already passing the dismal fir-forests and swamps that environ St. Petersburg. We held our way straight south. Heaven and earth took momently a darker coloring. The unwholesome day, the unwholesome night, the unwholesome city, all were left behind.