Russian Wind

The wind howled in the deserted streets, lifting up the black water of the canal above the rings on the bank, and irritably brushing against the lean lamp-posts which chimed in with its howling in a thin, shrill creak, keeping up the endless squeaky, jangling concert with which every inhabitant of Petersburg is so familiar. Snow and rain were falling both at once. Lashed by the wind, the streams of rainwater spurted almost horizontally, as though from a fireman’s hose, pricking and stinging the face of the luckless Mr. Golyadkin like a thousand pins and needles. In the stillness of the night, broken only by the distant rumbling of carriages, the howl of the wind and the creaking of the lamp-posts, there was the dismal sound of the splash and gurgle of water, rushing from every roof, every porch, every pipe and every cornice, on to the granite of the pavement. There was not a soul, near or far, and, indeed, it seemed there could not be at such an hour and in such weather. And so only Mr. Golyadkin, alone with his despair, was fleeing in terror along the pavement of Fontanka, with his usual rapid little step, in haste to get home as soon as possible to his flat on the fourth storey in Shestilavotchny Street. 

“The Double” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1846

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Dear Alex,

The wind, my host, calls me to come afar on my couch to St. Petersburg, rushing into my afternoon a century of generations. I splurge on this ride of a lifetime with Mr. Golyadkin, a clerk of torrid troubles at the impulse of sleet. He rasps as mad man, my perfect friend.

Mr. G in frantic glide does not know I am watching him and pacing from a shadow close. He skims the streets for home but sticks to the wind spitting on his face. I fall to his footsteps. He stumbles on my weight, slumps over me. He becomes my phantom double, faceless and footloose.

In wind I am stripped of cover and rant. Darkness beams, rain rousing thirst. I and Mr. G have no office or chore for excuse or escape. To or from where and what we care and know not. Naughty in whim, we are serious about our play with wind high in menace and uncertainty. Mr. G hunches low while floating on sky-lit fear. I leap on his back and whack my own, free to writhe in wind.

Mr. G is a pitiful passerby in the bypass of a bygone era. We do not know the rain or road to his flat. But the wind, relentless in whip and careless of time, shall take you to his parlor and closet as bewildering as familiar.

I pity myself for not having gone earlier.

Yours, Kate