We warmed up the stove. We deposited ourselves around it.
We sit. We sniff.
Here, near the damper, the chairman was sitting; here, Secretary Griboedov; and here on my bed, the treasurer.
Naturally, the fumes soon began to spread through the room.
The chairman took a sniff, and he says: "Not a thing. Don't smell a thing. Warm air's coming out, nothing else."
The treasurer, that plague, says: "The air's quite excellent. And one can sniff it. From this, one doesn't get dizzy. In my apartment," he says, "the air stinks much worse, and yet I," he says, "don't go around whimpering for nothing. But here the air is quite smooth."
"Pardon me," I say, "what do you mean—smooth? Just look how the gas is streaming out."
The chairman says: "Call the kitten. If the kitten will sit still, that means there's not a horse-radish wrong. An animal is always disinterested in a case like this. It's not a man. You can trust it."
The kitten comes. Sits herself down on the bed. Sits calmly. And why does she sit calmly? It's a clear case—she's already gotten a bit used to it.
"Not a thing," says the chairman, "we're sorry."
Suddenly, the treasurer rocks on the bed and says: "You know, I've got to hurry. I've got business to attend to."
And he goes over to the window and breathes through the chink.
And he's turning green and actually swaying on his feet.
The chairman says: "We'll be going now."
I drew him away from the window.
"It's impossible," I say, "to get expert judgment that way."
He says: "As you like. I can leave the window. Your air is quite healthy to me. Natural air, good for the health. I cannot give you any repairs. The stove is normal."
But half an hour later, when this very chairman was lying on a stretcher and the stretcher was being carried to the first-aid ambulance, I spoke with him again.
I say: "Well, what now?"
"Why no," he says, "there will be no repairs. One can live." And so they did not repair it.
Well, what's to be done? I'ih getting used to it. A man isn't a flea—he can get used to anything.
THE ELECTRICIAN
Brothers, I would never argue idly as to who's the most important man in the theater—the actor, the director, or maybe the stage carpenter. The facts will out. Facts always speak for themselves.
This affair took place in Saratov or in Simbirsk; in a word, someplace not far from Turkestan. In the municipal theater.
They played opera in this municipal theater. Besides the outstanding roles of the artists, there was in this theater, among others, the electrician—Ivan Kuzmich Miakishev.
When they took a picture of the whole theater in a group in the year twenty-three, they shoved this electrician somewhere to the side: technical personnel, they say. And in the center, on a chair with a back, they sat the tenor.
The electrician, Ivan Kuzmich Miakishev, said nothing about this boorishness, but in his heart he nourished a certain grievance. The more so since on the picture they had snapped him somewhat murkily, out of focus.
And here's what happened. This evening, for opening, they're playing Ruslan and Lyudmila. Music by Glinka. Conductor— Maestro Katzman. And at a quarter to eight two girls he knows come up to this electrician. Whether he had invited them beforehand or whether they just showed up is not known. So these two girl acquaintances show up, flirt intensely, and just ask to be seated in the main orchestra to see the show.
The electrician says: "Well, for God's sake, mesdames. I'll go get you a couple tickets right now. Sit down here in the box."
And he himself goes, of course, to the manager.
The manager says: "Today's a holiday. There's a whole slew of people. Every seat's taken. I can't."
The electrician says: "Ah, so," he says. "Well then, I refuse to play. I refuse, in a word, to light your production. Play without me. Then we'll see which of us is more important, who you can shove off to the side and who you set in the center."
And he went back to his box. He turned off the light in the
whole theater right up to the gallery, locked up the box with all his keys—and he just sits and flirts with his girlfriends.
Now, of course, everything is in a regular muddle. The manager's running around. The public is yelling. The man in the box office is whimpering, he's afraid somebody might run off with the money in the dark. But that beggar, the first opera tenor, accustomed to occupy the center, goes up to the director and says in his tenor voice: "I refuse to sing tenor in the dark. If it's dark/' he says, "I leave. I," he says, "prize my voice more than that. Let the electrician sing himself."
The electrician says: "O.K., so he doesn't sing. Spit on him. Once he gets out in the center, he thinks all he has to do is start singing with one hand, another light goes on. He's a tenor, he thinks, so there are always lights for him. Now there are no more tenors!"
Here, of course, the electrician tangled with the tenor.
Suddenly the manager shows up and says: "Where are those two damn girls? Everything's gone to pot on their account. I'll seat them somewhere right now, may a fiend roast them!"
The electrician says: "Here they are, those damn girls! Only it's not because of them everything's gone to pot. Everything's gone to pot because of me. Now," he says, "I'll give you light. I don't begrudge energy on principle."
And that very moment he gave light.
"Begin," he says.
So they seat his girls in excellent seats and the show begins.
Now you can figure out for yourself who is more important in the complex theatrical mechanism.
Of course, if you examine the matter dispassionately, then a tenor is of immense value to a theater. Another opera cannot go on without him. But without an electrician, too, there is no life on the theatrical boards. So that each of the two represents a singular value.
And so there's no reason to put on airs: so to speak, look at me, I'm a tenor. There's no reason to avoid friendly relations; or to take a murky picture, not in focus.
THE RECEIPT
Not long ago a very curious thing occurred.
It's all the more interesting in that it happens to be a fact. There is nothing invented here, nothing in the way of pure fantasy. On the contrary, all is taken, so to speak, from life itself.
And it's all the more interesting that the affair has some love interest in it. For this reason many will regard it playfully, as a token of what at the given moment is happening on this fairly important and actual front.
So there you are, it was two years ago in the city of Saratov that such an event took place. A certain more or less unideological young man, Serezha Khrenov, who is really an employee, or, more likely, a sorter-receiver at a certain institution, began to keep company with a certain girl, with a certain working girl let's say. Or she began to keep company with him. As for how long it had been going on, there is by now no way of figuring it out. It is only known that they came to be seen together on the streets of Saratov.
They began to stroll along together and to go out. They even began to go around hand in hand. They began to utter some various loverly words. And so on. And like that. And et cetera.
But this young dandy of a sorter once remarks to his lady like this: "Look here," he says, "Citizen Anna Lytkina. Now," he says, "we go strolling with you, and we walk together, and absolutely," he says, "we cannot foresee what will come of all this. So," he says, "be so kind, give me a receipt: to wit, in the event that, and if, a child is produced, then you have no claims whatever on the designated person. And I," says he, "possessing a receipt like that, I will be," he says, "more affectionate with you. In the opposing instance, now, I," says he, "woud sooner turn away from our love with you than subsequently suffer unrest because of our activities and pay money for the upkeep of posterity."
Either she was very much in love with him or this dandy had sunk her head in his own swamp of lack of ideology; in any
case, she did not stand about vainly arguing with him, but took the paper and signed it for him. "To wit, and so forth, and in the instance of which, I have no claim whatsoever on him and I will demand no money from him."
She signed this paper for him, but naturally she said a few words to him while doing it.
'This," she says, "is rather strange on your part. I have never given such receipts to anyone before. And it's even," she says, "quite an insult to me that your love takes such odd forms. But," she says, "if you want to put it that way, then of course I'll sign your paper for you."
The sorter says: "So please be so kind. I," he says, "have been sizing up our country for the past ten years and I know what comes of this."
In a word, she signed the paper. And he, not being a fool, had the signature of her charming hand notarized in the housing administration, and he stored this precious document as close to his heart as possible.
To make it brief, within a year and a half they stood as sweethearts before the people's judge, and were in the process of reporting to him on their former feeling for each other, now extinguished.
She stood in her white knitted shawl and rocked an infant.
"Yes," says she, "I really did sign it in my stupidity, but then a child like this was born, and let the father do his bit too. The more so since I don't have any work right now."
But he, the former young father that is, stands cool as a cucumber and grins into his whiskers.
To wit, what is all this talk about? What's going on here anyway? What's coming off—I don't get it. When it's all so clear and obvious, and with all that, be so kind, here is the document.
He triumphantly flings open his jacket, grubs about in it a bit, and pulls out his cherished paper.
He pulls out his cherished paper and, smiling softly, puts it on the judge's table.
The people's judge examined this receipt, looked at the signature and at the seal, smiled, and this is what he says: "No doubt about it, the document is correct."
The sorter says: "Why, certainly, if you'll pardon me, of course It's correct! Why, there just isn't any doubt. Every rule," says he, "is observed, and nothing is violated."
The people's judge says: 'The document, undoubtedly, is correct. But there happens to be an interpretation as follows: Soviet law is on the side of the child and once and for all defends his interests. And in this given instance the child cannot be held responsible by law nor can he be allowed to suffer just because his father accidentally turned out to be such a rather sly son of a bitch. And in force of that," says he, "your afore-mentioned receipt cuts no ice whatsoever, and its only value is as a souvenir. Here," says he, "take it back and store it in your breast as quick as you can."
To make it brief, it's been half a year now that the former father is paying money.
M. P. SINIAGIN
(Reminiscences of Michel Siniagin)
This book is a reminiscence of a certain man, as it were; of a little-known minor poet, with whom the author has come into contact during the course of a good many years.
The fate of this man, this author, has been an extremely striking one, and in view of this, the author has decided to write these, as it were, reminiscences of him, a kind of biographical novella, as it were, not for the edification of posterity, but simply for its own sake.
One needn't always be writing biographies and memoirs of remarkable and great men, of their exemplary lives and their great ideas and achievements. Someone has to respond to the experiences of other, let us say, more average people, who have not been, so to speak, inscribed in the velvet-bound book of life.
Because the lives of such people, in the author's opinion, are also sufficiently instructive and curious. Mistakes, blunders, sorrows, and joys are scarcely diminished in their measure because the man who experienced them, let's say, failed to paint on a canvas some charming chef-d'oeuvre—"Girl with Jug"—or never quickly mastered the piano keys, or, let's say, never discovered for the good and peace of mankind some superfluous comet or star in the firmament.
On the contrary, the lives of such ordinary people are even more comprehensible, even more worthy of astonishment than, let us say, some exceptional and extraordinary deeds and extravagances of an artist of genius, a pianist or a tuner. The lives of such simple people are even more interesting and even more accessible to the understanding.
The author does not wish to imply that you are now about to see anything of such exceptional interest, anything amazing in the way of experiences or passions. No, this will be a life modestly Uved; described, moreover, a bit hastily, carelessly, and with niany errors. Of course, the author tried as hard as he could, but for utter brilliance of description he lacked, as it were, that
necessary calmness of spirit and love for petty detail and experience. Here there will not be that calm breath of a man overconfident and secure in his convictions, the breath of an author whose fate is protected and nourished by a golden age.
Here there will not be beauty of phrase, bold turns of speech, and exclamations over the greatness of nature.
Here there will be life simply and truthfully expounded. Moreover, the author's rather ticklish nature, his restlessness and his attention to other trifles, compels him from time to time to interrupt the flow of the narrative to resolve some topical problem or some doubt.
Concerning the book's chapter headings, the author is willing to concede that the headings are a bit dry and academic—they offer little to the mind or the heart. But the author keeps these headings for the time being. The author had wished to give this book some other title, for example: In Life's Paws or Life Begins the Day after Tomorrow. But he lacked the conviction and the gall to do this. Moreover, these chapter headings have probably already had some literary currency, and the author has been unable to find the necessary wit and inventiveness for writing new chapter headings.
September 1930
One Hundred Years from Now. Of Our Time. Of Adaptability. Of Duels. Of Stockings. Prologue to the History.
There, in the distant future, let us say within a hundred or perhaps even somewhat fewer years, when everything will have been decisively shaken down and established, when life will dazzle us all with its ineffable brilliance, some citizen or other, some such citizen with mustaches, in some such, as it were, short suede suit, or let us say in his silk evening pajamas, will take, let us imagine, our modest book, and will lie down with it on the couch. He will lie down on a morocco leather couch, or there, let us say, on a soft hassock or armchair, cushion his fragrant head on his clean, pure hands, and, meditating softly on things of beauty, will open the book.
"Interesting," he will say, eating a piece of candy, "how they lived at that time."
And his beautiful young wife—or, since it is the future, let us
say the companion of his life—sits beside him wrapped in some kind of extraordinary peignoir.
"Andreus," she will say (or, since it is the future, "Theodore"), wrapping herself in her peignoir, "would you like," she will say, "to read some poetry? You'll just jangle your nerves," she will say, "staring at the night."
And she herself, perhaps, will take from the shelf some little volume in a gay satin binding—the verses of some well-known poet of that bygone time—and will begin to read:
In my window swung the lily. I am all astew . . . Olove, O love, O my Idylly, I will come to you . . .
This is how the author at the moment imagines such a water-color picture, so that his pen actually drops from his hand—and he simply has no wish to write.
Of course, the author does not assert that such little scenes will really be observed in the life of the future. No, once and for all, this is improbable. It is only a momentary fantasy. One can only half entertain it. Most likely, (juite the opposite, most likely it will be a very, as it were, healthy, succulent generation.
These will be bronzed men of sunshine and health, who dress modestly but simply, without any special pretension to luxury or foppishness.
Moreover, perhaps they will never read such mangy lyric verses at all, or will read them only in exceptional circumstances, preferring to them our prosaic little books, which they will take in their hands with a complete spiritual tremor and with complete respect for their authors.
As the author is about to think of such real readers, however, difficulties again beset him, and again his pen drops from his hand.
Well, what does an author have to offer such excellent readers?
Sincerely acknowledging all the greatness of our time, nonetheless the author lacks powers sufficient to present a corresponding opus, one that fully depicts our epoch. Perhaps the author has corrupted his brain with his trivial everyday petit bourgeois oc-feupations, with various personal sorrows and tasks, but he simply lacks the powers for an extensive opus of the kind that might have
some interest for his future distinguished readers. No, surely it is better to close one's eyes to the future and not to think of the new generations that are growing. Surely it is better to write for the readers we know.
But here again, doubts appear and the pen drops from the hand. At the present time, when the sharpest, most necessary and even unavoidable theme is the collective farm, the shortage of scales or the construction of silos—it may be that it is simply untactful to write this way, just about the experiences of people who, essentially speaking, play no part at all in the complex mechanism of our days.
The reader may simply curse the author as a swine. "Eheh," he will say, "look what this one's writing about yet! Experiences he's describing, the plague. Look, now," he'll say, "what's the good, he starts piling up poems about flowers."
No, about flowers the author will not write. The author will write a novella, in his opinion even a wholly necessary novella, summing up, so to speak, the life of the past; a novella about a certain insignificant poet who lived in our time. Of course, the author foresees some cruel criticism in this sense on the part of young and frivolous critics who observe such literary facts superficially.
However, the author's conscience is clear. The author does not forget the other front either and does not shun writing about absenteeism, silage, or the liquidation of illiteracy. On the contrary even, such modest work suits him once and for all.
And Other Stories Of Communist Russia Page 7
