Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume X).djvu/160

Rh ? I never liked Petersburg nights; but this time the night seemed even fearful to me; the face of Alice had vanished completely, melted away like the mist of morning in the July sun, and I saw her whole body clearly, as it hung, heavy and solitary on a level with the Alexander column. So here was Petersburg! Yes, it was Petersburg, no doubt. The wide empty grey streets; the greyish-white, and yellowish-grey and greyish-lilac houses, covered with stucco, which was peeling off, with their sunken windows, gaudy sign-boards, iron canopies over steps, and wretched little green-grocer's shops ; the façades, inscriptions, sentry-boxes, troughs; the golden cap of St Isaac's; the senseless motley Bourse; the granite walls of the fortress, and the broken wooden pavement; the barges loaded with hay and timber; the smell of dust, cabbage, matting, and hemp; the stony-faced dvorniks in sheep-skin coats, with high collars; the cab-drivers, huddled up dead asleep on their decrepit cabs — yes, this was Petersburg, our northern Palmyra. Everything was visible; everything was clear — cruelly clear and distinct — and everything was mournfully sleeping, standing out in strange huddled masses in the dull clear air. The flush of sunset — a hectic flush — had not yet gone, and would not be gone till morning