The night seemed endless; the whole house was trembling under the pressure of the waves, like a rotten vessel on the brink of destruction. Overhead the storm tore off the tiles from the roof; now rushing past with furious howls and stamping like a herd of wild beasts, now with piercing hiss and rustle like a flock of gigantic birds; at times it seemed as if the wind would tear off the roof itself and blow them all away. In the voice of the storm they seemed to hear the cries of the drowning; they expected the whole town would disappear at any moment.
One of the ladies, the wife of the Danish resident, who was with child, was suddenly seized by violent pains and screamed most piteously; a premature delivery was feared.
George Proskóurov kept praying: “Holy Father Nicholas, St. Sergius have mercy upon us!” It was difficult to recognise in him the free-thinker who had been expounding the non-existence of the soul. Michael Avrámoff was also quaking with fear, yet seemed to rejoice at the misfortune which had befallen them.
“How argue with God? His wrath is just. This town will be destroyed from the face of the earth like Sodom and Gomorrah: ‘And God looked upon the earth and behold it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted his way upon earth. And God said: The end of all flesh is come before me. And behold I will bring a flood of water on the earth and destroy all flesh wherein is breath of life from under heaven.’”
Listening to these prophecies the refugees felt a new, hitherto unexperienced terror, as if the end of the world, the day of judgment were at hand.
A glow of fire flashed in the black sky; the sound of a clashing bell was heard through the noise of the storm; it was the alarm bell: the grooms said that in the Admiralty dockyards close by, the workmen’s dwellings and the rope and cable stores were on fire. Notwithstanding the abundance of water the fire was especially dangerous in this high wind; burning logs were blown about, and the whole city threatened to blaze up any moment. Petersburg was perishing from these two elements: fire and water; the prophecies were being fulfilled, Petersburg was doomed.
Towards dawn the storm subsided; in the grey transparency of the dim light the gentlemen in wigs, covered with dust and cobwebs, the ladies in “robes-rondes” and hooped skirts after the Versailles fashion, wrapped in sheepskins, their faces blue with the cold, appeared like spectres to each other.
Mons looked out of the garret window and saw in place of a town, a limitless lake. This lake was agitated not only on the surface but seemed to boil, seethe, and bubble up from the very bottom like water in a kettle over a hot fire. This lake was the Neva, variegated like the skin of a serpent’s belly, yellow, purple, black, but patched with white foam; wearied, yet angry, under the terrible, low, leaden sky, grey as the expanse below. Wrecks of barges, overturned boats, logs, planks, roofs, the skeletons of complete houses, carcases of animals—all these were floating slowly past on its waves.
Melancholy were the traces of human life in the midst of this triumphant element; here and there above the water peered the towers, spires, domes and roofs of flooded houses.