The sated guests, their bellies gurgling, settled themselves in low armchairs. Some lounged by the columns, others near the balustrade. Near it, too, stood Cincinnatus, twirling in his fingers the mummy of a cigar, and beside him, not turning to him but incessantly touching him either with his back, or with his side, M'sieur Pierre was saying to the accompaniment of approving exclamations from his listeners:
"Photography and fishing--those are my two chief passions. It may seem odd to you, but fame and honor are nothing to me compared with rural quiet. I see you are smiling skeptically, kind sir" (he said in passing to one of the guests who at once repudiated his smile), "but I swear to you that this is so, and I do not swear idly. The love of nature was bequeathed to me by my father, who never lied either. Many of you, of course, remember him and can confirm this, even in writing, if it should become necessary."
Standing by the balustrade, Cincinnatus peered vaguely into the darkness, and just then, as if by request, the darkness paled enticingly, as the moon, now clear and high, glided out from behind the black fleece of cloudlets, varnished the shrubs, and let its light trill in the ponds. Suddenly, with an abrupt start of the soul, Cincinnatus realized that he was in the very thick of the Tamara Gardens which he remembered so well and which had seemed so inaccessible to him; he realized that he had walked here with Marthe many times, past this very house in which he was now and which had then appeared to him as a white villa with boarded-up windows, glimpsed through the foliage on the hillock ... Now, exploring the surroundings with a diligent eye, he easily removed the murky film of night from the familiar lawns and also erased from them the superfluous lunar dusting, so as to make them exactly as they were in his memory. As he restored the painting smudged by the soot of night, he saw groves, paths, brooks taking shape where they used to be ... In the distance, pressing against the metallic sky, the charmed hills stood still, glossed with blue and folded in gloom....
"A porch, moon's torch, and he, and she," recited M'sieur Pierre smiling at Cincinnatus, who noticed that everyone was looking at him with tender, expectant sympathy.
"Admiring the landscape?" said the park superintendent to him with a confidential air, hands clasped behind his back. "You ..." He stopped short and, as if somewhat embarrassed, turned to M'sieur Pierre: "Excuse me ... do I have your permission? After all I haven't been introduced ..."
"Please, please, you don't have to ask my permission," M'sieur Pierre replied courteously and, touching Cincinnatus's elbow said in a low voice, "This gentleman would like to chat with you, my dear."
The park superintendent cleared his throat into his fist and repeated, "The landscape ... Admiring the landscape? Right now you can't see very much. But just you wait, exactly at midnight--so our chief engineer has promised me ... Nikita Lukich! Over here, Nikita Lukich."
"Coming," Nikita Lukich responded in a jaunty bass, and obligingly stepped forward, cheerfully turning now to one, now to the other, his youthful, fleshy face with the white brush of a mustache, and placing a hand comfortably on the shoulder of the park superintendent and on that of M'sieur Pierre.
"I was just telling him, Nikita Lukich, that you promised, exactly at midnight, in honor of ..."
"Why of course," the chief engineer interrupted. "We shall have the surprise without fail. Don't you worry about that. By the way, what time is it, boys?"
He relieved the others' shoulders of the pressure of his broad hands and, with a preoccupied mien, went inside.
"Well, in eight hours or so we shall already be in the square," said M'sieur Pierre, squeezing shut the lid of his watch. "We shan't be getting much sleep. You aren't cold, are you, my dear? The nice man said there would be a surprise. I must say they are spoiling us. That fish we had for dinner was without equal."
"... Stop it, leave me alone," said the husky voice of the lady administrator, whose massive back and gray bun were coming straight at M'sieur Pierre as she retreated from the supply director's index finger. "Tee-tee," he squeaked playfully, "tee-tee."
"Take it easy, madam," croaked M'sieur Pierre. "My corns aren't state property."
"Bewitching woman," the supply director remarked in passing, totally without expression and, capering, headed toward a group of men standing by the columns; then his shadow was lost among their shadows, and a breeze made the Japanese lanterns sway, and in the dark there would be revealed now a hand pompously preening a mustache, now a cup raised to senile, fish lips that were trying to get the sugar from the bottom.
"Attention!" the host shouted, passing like a whirlwind among the guests.
And, first in the garden, then beyond it, then still further, along the walks, in groves, in glades and on lawns, singly and in clusters, ruby, sapphire, and topaz lamps lit up, gradually inlaying the night with gems. The guests began to "oh!" and "ah!" M'sieur Pierre inhaled sharply and grabbed Cincinnatus by the wrist. The lights covered an ever-increasing area: now they stretched out along a distant valley, now they were on the other side of it, in the form of an elongated brooch, now they already studded the first slopes; once there they passed on from hill to hill, nestling in the most secret folds, groping their way to the summits, crossing over them! "Oh, how beautiful," whispered M'sieur Pierre, for an instant pressing his cheek against the cheek of Cincinnatus.
The guests applauded. For three minutes a good million light bulbs of diverse colors burned, artfully planted in the grass, in branches, on cliffs, and all arranged in such a way as to embrace the whole nocturnal landscape with a grandiose monogram of "P" and "C," which, however, had not quite come off. Thereupon the lights went out all at once and solid darkness reached up to the terrace.
When engineer Nikita Lukich reappeared they surrounded him and wanted to toss him. It was time, however, to begin thinking about a well deserved rest. Before the guests left, the host offered to photograph M'sieur Pierre and Cincinnatus by the balustrade. M'sieur Pierre, even though he was the one who was being photographed, nevertheless directed this operation. A burst of light illumined the white profile of Cincinnatus and the eyeless face beside him. The host himself handed them their capes and went out to see them off. In the vestibule morose soldiers were clattering sleepily as they sorted out their halberds.
"I am ineffably flattered by your visit," the host said to Cincinnatus in parting. "Tomorrow--or rather this morning--I shall be there, of course, and not only in an official capacity but also in a personal one. My nephew tells me that a large gathering is expected.
"Well, good luck to you," said he to M'sieur Pierre in between the traditional three kisses on the cheeks.
Cincinnatus and M'sieur Pierre, with their escort of soldiers, plunged into the lane.
"On the whole you are a good fellow," said M'sieur Pierre when they had gone a little distance, "only why do you always.... Your shyness makes an extremely unfavorable impression on new people. I don't know about you," he added, "but although I am delighted with the illumination and so forth, I have heartburn and a suspicion that not all the cooking was done with creamery butter."
They walked a long time. It was very dark and foggy.
A blunt knock-knock-knock came from somewhere off to the left as they were descending Steep Avenue. Knock-knock-knock.
"The scoundrels," muttered M'sieur Pierre. "Didn't they swear it was all done?"
At last they crossed the bridge and started uphill. The moon had already been removed and the dark towers of the fortress blended with the clouds.
At the third gate, Rodrig Ivanovich was waiting in dressing gown and nightcap.
"Well, how was it?" he asked impatiently.
"Nobody missed you," M'sieur Pierre said dryly.
Eighteen
"Tried to sleep, could not, only got chilled all through, and now it is dawn" (Cincinnatus wrote rapidly, illegibly, leaving words unfinished, as a running man leaves an incomplete footprint), "now the air is pale, and I am so frozen that it seems to me that the abstract concept of 'cold' must have as its concrete form the sha
pe of my body, and they are going to come for me any time now. It makes me ashamed to be afraid, but I am desperately afraid--fear, never halting, rushes through me with an ominous roar, like a torrent, and my body vibrates like a bridge over a waterfall, and one has to speak very loud to hear oneself above the roar. I am ashamed, my soul has disgraced itself--for this ought not to be, ne dolzhno bilo bi bit'--only on the bark of the Russian language could such a fungus bunch of verbs have sprouted--oh, how ashamed I am that my attention is occupied, my soul blocked by such dithering details, they push through, with lips wet, to say farewell, all kinds of memories come to say farewell: I, a child, am sitting with a book in the hot sun on the bank of a dinning stream, and the water throws its wavering reflection on the lines of an old, old poem,--'Love at the sloping of our years'--but I know I should not yield--'Becomes more tender and superstitious'--neither to memories, nor to fear, nor to this passionate syncope: '... and superstitious'--and I had hoped so much that everything would be orderly, all simple and neat. For I know that the horror of death is nothing really, a harmless convulsion--perhaps even healthful for the soul--the choking wail of a newborn child or a furious refusal to release a toy--and that there once lived, in caverns where there is the tinkle of a perpetual stillicide, and stalactites, sages who rejoiced at death and who--blunderers for the most part, it is true--yet who in their own way, mastered--and even though I know all this, and know yet another main, paramount thing that no one here knows--nevertheless, look, dummies, how afraid I am, how everything in me trembles, and dins, and rushes--and any moment now they will come for me, and I am not ready, I am ashamed ..."
Cincinnatus got up, made a running start and smashed headlong into the wall--the real Cincinnatus, however, remained sitting at the table, staring at the wall, chewing his pencil, and presently shuffled his feet under the table and continued to write, a little less rapidly:
"Save these jottings--I do not know whom I ask, but save these jottings--I assure you that such a law exists, look it up, you will see!--let them lie around for a while-how can that hurt you?--and I ask you so earnestly--my last wish--how can you not grant it? I must have at least the theoretical possibility of having a reader, otherwise, really, I might as well tear it all up. There, that is what I needed to say. Now it is time to get ready."
He paused again. It had already grown quite light in the cell, and Cincinnatus knew by the position of the light that half-past five was about to strike. He waited until he heard the distant ringing, and went on writing, but now quite slowly and haltingly, just as if he had spent all his strength on some initial exclamation.
"My words all mill about in one spot," wrote Cincinnatus. "Envious of poets. How wonderful it must be to speed along a page and, right from the page, where only a shadow continues to run, to take off into the blue. The untidiness, sloppiness of an execution, of all the manipulations, before and after. How cold the blade, how smooth the ax's grip. With emery paper. I suppose the pain of parting will be red and loud. The thought, when written down, becomes less oppressive, but some thoughts are like a cancerous tumor: you express it, you excise it, and it grows back worse than before. It is hard to imagine that this very morning, in an hour or two ..."
But two hours passed, and more, and, just as always, Rodion brought breakfast, tidied the cell, sharpened the pencil, removed the close-stool, fed the spider. Cincinnatus did not ask him anything, but, when Rodion had left, and time dragged on at its customary trot, he realized that once again he had been duped, that he had strained his soul to no purpose, and that everything had remained just as uncertain, viscous and senseless as before.
The clock had just finished striking three or four (he had dozed off and then half awakened, and so had not counted the strokes, but had only retained an approximate impression of their sum of sound) when suddenly the door opened and Marthe came in. Her cheeks were flushed, the comb at the back of her head had worked loose, the tight bodice of her black velvet dress was heaving--and something did not fit right, and this made her appear lopsided, and she kept trying to straighten her dress, tugging at it, or very rapidly wriggling her hips, as if something underneath were wrong and uncomfortable.
"Some cornflowers for you," she said, tossing a blue posy upon the table, and at the same time, nimbly lifting the hem of her skirt above her knee, she put on the chair a plump little leg in a white stocking, pulling it up to the place where the garter had left its imprint on the tender, quivering fat. "My, how hard it was to get permission! Of course, I had to agree to a little concession--the usual story. Well, how are you, my poor little Cin-Cin?"
"I must confess I was not expecting you," said Cincinnatus. "Sit down somewhere."
"I tried yesterday, no luck--and today I said to myself, I'll get through if it's the last thing I do. He kept me for an hour, your director. Spoke very highly of you, by the way. Oh, how I hurried today, how I was afraid that I would be too late. What a mob there was in Thriller Square this morning!"
"Why did they call it off?" asked Cincinnatus.
"Well, they said everybody was tired, didn't get enough sleep. You know, the crowd simply did not want to leave. You ought to be proud."
Oblong, marvelously burnished tears crept down Marthe's cheeks and chin, closely following all their contours--one even flowed down her neck as far as the clavicular dimple ... Her eyes, however, kept on gazing just as roundly, her short fingers with white spots on the nails kept spreading out, and her thin mobile lips kept emitting words:
"There are some who insist that now it's been postponed for a long time, but then you can't really find out from anyone. You simply cannot imagine all the rumors, the confusion ..."
"What are you crying about?" asked Cincinnatus with a smile.
"I don't know myself--I'm just worn out ..." (In a low chesty voice): "I'm sick and tired of all of you. Cincinnatus, Cincinnatus, what a mess you have got yourself into! ... The things people say about you--it's dreadful! Oh, listen," she suddenly began in a different tempo, beaming, smacking her lips, and preening herself. "The other day--when was it?--yes, day before yesterday, there comes to me this little dame, a lady doctor or something--a total stranger, mind you, in an awful raincoat, and begins hawing and hemming. Of course,' she says, 'you understand.' I says, 'No, so far I don't understand a thing.' She says:--'Oh, I know who you are, you don't know me'... I says ..." (Marthe miming her interlocutress, assumed a fussy and fatuous tone, slowing soberly, however, on the drawn-out "says," and, now that she was conveying her own words, she depicted herself as being calm as snow). "In a word, she tried to tell me that she was your mother--though I think even her age wouldn't be right, but we'll overlook that. She said she was terribly afraid of being persecuted, since, you see, they had questioned her and subjected her to all sorts of things. I says: 'What do I have to do with all this and why should you want to see me?' She says: 'Oh, yes, I know you are terribly kind, you'll do all you can.' I says: 'What makes you think I'm kind?' She says: 'Oh, I know'--and asks if I couldn't give her a paper, a certificate, that I would sign hand and foot, stating that she had never been at our house and had never seen you ... This, you know, seemed so funny to Marthe, so funny! I think" (in a drawling, low-pitched voice) "that she must have been some kind of a crank, a nut, don't you think so? In any case, I of course did not give her anything. Victor and the others said it might compromise me--since it would seem that I knew your every move, if I knew you weren't acquainted with her--and so she left, very crestfallen, I would say."
"But it really was my mother," said Cincinnatus.
"Maybe, maybe. After all, it's not so important. But tell me, why are you so dull and glum, Cin-Cin? I imagined you would be so happy to see me, but you ..."
She glanced at the cot, then at the door.
"I don't know what the rules are here," she said under her breath, "but if you need it badly, Cin-Cin, go ahead, only do it quickly."
"Oh, don't--what nonsense," said Cincinnatus.
"Well, as you ple
ase. I only wanted to give you a treat because it's the last interview and all that. Oh, by the way, do you know who wants to marry me? Guess who--you'll never guess. Remember that old grouch who used to live next door to us, who kept stinking with his pipe across the fence, and always used to peek when I climbed the apple tree? Can you imagine? And the thing is, he was perfectly serious! Can you see me marrying him, the old scarecrow? Ugh! Anyway I feel it's time I had a good, long rest--you know, close my eyes, stretch out, not think about anything, and relax, absolutely alone of course or else with someone who would really care, and understand everything, everything ..."
Her short, coarse eyelashes again glistened, and the tears crept down, visiting every dimple on her apple-rosy cheeks.
Cincinnatus took one of these tears and tasted it: it was neither salty nor sweet--merely a drop of luke-warm water. Cincinnatus did not do this.
Suddenly the door squealed and opened an inch; a red-haired finger beckoned to Marthe. She quickly went to the door.
"Well, what do you want, it isn't time yet, is it, I was promised a whole hour," she whispered rapidly. Something was said in reply.
"Not on your life!" she said indignantly. "You can tell him that. The agreement was that I should do it only with the direct--"
She was interrupted; she listened carefully to the insistent mumbling; she looked down, frowning, and scraping the floor with the toe of her slipper.
"Well, all right," she blurted out, and with innocent vivacity turned to her husband: "I'll be back in five minutes, Cin-Cin."
(While she was gone he thought that not only had he not even begun his urgent talk with her, but that now he could no longer formulate those important things ... At the same time his heart was aching, and the same old memory whimpered in a corner; but it was time, it was time to wean himself from all this anguish.)
She returned only in three quarters of an hour, snorting contemptuously. She put one foot on the chair, snapped her garter, and, angrily readjusting the pleats below her waist, sat down at the table, precisely as she had been sitting before.
Invitation to a Beheading Page 15
