‘As it comes.’
Hippolyte shrugged. He presented me with a long-stemmed narrow glass in which yellow liquid shone. I do not believe I let my pleasure show on my face as I sipped the bitter drink, but from that moment I had found a new vice. It is one which, sadly, became harder and harder to indulge. Hippolyte was free with the absinthe. He brought me the bottle. It was called ‘Terminus’. Modern readers will not remember the old advertisements which might only have appeared in good Russian shops. I never saw one, I think, in Paris. ‘Je bois à tes succès, ma chère,’ says the Harlequin to his fin-de-siècle ‘Mucha’ lady, ‘et à ceux de l’Absinthe Terminus la seule bienfaisante.’
I settled patiently to wait to see what would happen. The worst would be an angry host who would give me some idea of Seryozha’s whereabouts before he dismissed me. I could also go to the Little Theatre in the Fontanka where the Ballet Foline was performing some piece of nonsense by that Grand Deceiver, Stravinski. We were entering an age of brilliant conjurors posing as creators. They took the techniques of the travelling sideshow and transformed them into art. In time they allowed every ’sensitive’ young person to become an artist: all that was required was a gift for self-advertisement and the persuasive voice of a Jewish market-spieler.
Hippolyte inspected his kohl and rouge. The silver frame of the mirror was, like almost everything here, fashioned to resemble naked nymphs or satyrs.
The door opened and the master of the house entered. He was very tall. He wore a huge tawny wolfskin coat. I was immediately admiring and envious. One would not wish to give such a coat up, even at the height of summer.
The wolfskin was thrown off. ‘Kolya’ was dressed entirely in black, with black broad-brimmed hat, black shirt, black tie, black gloves, black boots and, of course, black trousers, waistcoat and frockcoat. His hair was pure white, either dyed or natural. His eyes had that reddish tinge associated with albinism, but I think overindulgence and a natural melancholy had created the effect. His skin was pale as the snowdrops in the hands of Nevski flower-girls. When he saw me he drew back a step in mock surprise. With his black, silver-headed cane in one long-fingered hand, he smiled with such compassionate irony that, were I a girl, I should at once have been his.
‘My dear!’ he said in French to Hippolyte. ‘But what is this little grey soldier doing in our house?’
‘He came for Seryozha,’ said Hippolyte in Russian. ‘His name’s Dimitri Alexeivitch something...’
‘I am known as Dimitri Mitrofanovitch Kryscheff.’ I bowed. ‘I called to return this to M. Tsipliakov.’ I held out the snuff-box.
With an elegant movement of his arm (I could see whom Hippolyte imitated), Kolya plucked the box from my palm. He snapped it open. ‘Empty!’
‘It is, your excellency.’
I had flattered and amused this magnifico.
‘You are a friend of Seryozha’s?’
‘An acquaintance. I have been meaning to return the box to him. But my studies interfered.’
‘And what are you studying? I see you are enjoying the absinthe. Sip it slowly and drain the glass, my dear. It is the last bottle.’ He spoke neutrally. There was no sidelong glance of disapproval at Hippolyte as I might have expected. I was in the presence of a real gentleman, a dandy of the old English sort, rather than a debauchee of our Russian kind. ‘Your French is good,’ he said. ‘Your accent is almost perfect.’
Hippolyte was scowling, evidently not following the conversation.
‘I have a talent for languages.’
‘And languages are what you study? Where? At the University?’
‘No, no, m’sieur. I study science. I have already produced a number of inventions and designs for new vehicles. Methods of bridging oceans. Well, all kinds of things ...’
‘But you are exactly the sort of fellow for me!’ Kolya seemed genuinely delighted. ‘I am obsessed with science. You read Laforgue?’
I had never heard of him.
‘An exquisite poet. The best of all of us. He died very young, you know. Of the usual sickness.’
‘Syphilis?’
He laughed. ‘Tuberculosis. My dear sir, I am ignorant. Will you give me lessons in the secrets of the internal combustion engine, the electrical landaulette, the composition of matter?’
‘I should be happy to ...’
‘You will become my tutor? Really? You will supply me with images?’
‘Images, m’sieu. I am not sure...’
‘The symbols of the twentieth century, my dear Dimitri Mitrofanovitch. It is in science we must find our poetry. And we must give our poetry to science.’ He spoke, I must admit, as if he had rehearsed this speech more than once. I was in the presence of a Futurist, but not one of the vulgar fellows I had seen demonstrating in the Nevski. There was something about ‘Kolya’ which impressed me in a way the Futurists and other modern confidence-tricksters had not. Kolya had magnetism. Kolya knew at least a little of the sciences. If he was rich - and he seemed to be - he might pay for private lessons. In turn these would pay for the cocaine he would be able to supply.
Hippolyte was glaring at me now. I think he suspected a rival for Kolya’s affections. This was ridiculous. I have occasionally been forced to indulge in certain minor affairs with members of my own sex. Who has not? I know this will not shock an English audience, for such things are the norm here. But my relationship with Kolya was to be one of the warmest friendship and regard. I had in fact found a patron!
‘Are you fond of Baudelaire, Dimitri Mitrofanovitch?’
‘The poet?’
‘The poet, indeed!’ Kolya strode to the window and drew back the shutters, letting in thin, Petersburg light. ‘Les tuyaux, les clochers ces mâts de la cite!’ He smiled. The celebration of urban life. The greatest poets were never Arcadians, your singers of shepherds and their lasses. The greatest poets of the world have always cried the virtues of the streets, the slums, the alleys and the buildings, the things created not by God but by their fellow men. To be a true poet is to sing of the city. To sing of the city is to be a true revolutionary!’
It seemed a safe enough way of being a revolutionary. I was not unduly alarmed, although I began to have doubts concerning Kolya as an employer. I was already associated in the minds of the police with one radical and here I was falling in. it seemed, with another. But I needed the cocaine if I were to continue with my work, to win my diploma, to begin my career, to give the world the benefits of my brain.
‘Villon, Baudelaire, Laforgue - even Pushkin, young Dimka. All celebrated the city. The innocent abroad in the gutters of the world, eh? It is our natural environment and it is natural for us to sing of it. Nature is the factory, the apartment building, the gas-holder, the locomotive. Are they not more beautiful than fields and flowers? More complex than cows and sheep? If Russia is to rise: If the Scythians are to display their glory to the world: then we must cease our celebration of the veins on the leaf of the beech; the wonder of the crushed poppy beneath the foot; the subtlety of sunsets over Lake Ladoga. We must describe the yellow fumes of the factories distorting the bloody rays of the sun: making human art of what we always believed was the work of the Gods alone.
‘Have you watched the sunsets over the docks. Dimka? Have you seen how red light is made more beautiful by the smoke and steam from the ships? How it illuminates the bricks of the buildings, the rusty sides of the ships, the wooden hulls, the sails? How it reflects from the oil lying on black water, producing a thousand images within one image? Have you noticed how a steam-locomotive brings roaring life to a dead landscape, as the great primeval beasts once brought it similar life? How golden sun streams through fine coal dust? Do not all these things excite you, make your blood pound, your heart beat with joy? You, a scientist, must understand what so many of my fellow poets do not! For all they rant of rods and engines, they have no true imagination and therefore cannot see that these things are not the objects of their satire, but the inspiration of their humanity!’