And Other Stories Of Communist Russia

by Zoshchenko,Mikhail.

  I do not feel like signing the copies, but Serezha insists. He says: "We're not kids any more. Our childhood's past ... I beg you to sign."

  Without reading them, I write on each sheet: "An authentic copy." I sign my name.

  As a token of his appreciation, Serezha takes me into the yard; and, there, he shows me the emergency ladder and the fire hoses, which are drying in the sun.

  EASTER NIGHT

  I'm hurrying for matins. I'm standing in front of the mirror dressed in my school uniform. In my left hand I'm holding a pair of white kid gloves. With my right hand I'm adjusting the astonishing parting of my hair.

  I am not especially pleased with my appearance. Very young.

  At sixteen, I should look older.

  Carelessly flinging a cloak around my shoulders I go out to the stairs.

  Tata T. is climbing up the stairs.

  She looks surprisingly well today, in her short wool jacket, with a muff in her hands.

  "Aren't you going to church?" I ask.

  "No, we're entertaining at home," she says, smiling. And coming up closer, she adds: "Christ is arisen! . . . Mishenka .. ."

  "It isn't midnight yet," I mutter.

  Throwing her arms around my neck, Tata T. kisses me.

  This was not three Easter kisses. This was one long kiss that lasted a minute. I begin to grasp that this is not a Christian kiss.

  At first, I have a feeling of joy, then surprise, then—I laugh.

  "Why do you laugh?" she asks.

  "I didn't know people kissed like that."

  "People don't, you idiot," she says. "Men and women do!"

  Her hand caresses my face and she kisses my eyes. Then, hearing someone knocking at the door by her apartment, she rushes up the stairs—beautiful and mysterious, really such as I would always wish to love.

  IN THE UNIVERSITY

  At the gate there's a police officer. Since I don't have a ticket, he asks me to show my student registration. I show my documents.

  "Go on in," he says.

  In the yard there are armed soldiers and police.

  Today is the anniversary of Tolstoi's death.

  I walk along the university corridor. Here, there is noise, fuss, animation.

  Prutchenko, the warden of the school district, is walking slowly along the corridor. He is tall, broadly built, red-faced. On the white shirt front under his uniform there are small diamond buttons.

  Around the warden there is a living wall of students. These are students from the academic corporation, "white linings." Hand in hand, they formed a chain around the warden; they are protecting him from possible excesses. A long-faced pimply Uudent in uniform, with a sword at his side, takes command and fusses more than anyone.

  Hellish noise all around. Someone shouts: 'They led an elephant along the street." Jokes. Laughter.

  The warden slowly moves forward. The living wall respectfully moves along with him.

  A student appears. He's short. Not handsome. But his face looks surprisingly intelligent, energetic.

  Approaching the wall, he comes to a stop. Involuntarily, the wall with the warden inside comes to a stop, too.

  Raising his hand, the student asks for silence.

  When it gets quieter, the student shouts, emphasizing every word: "We have two misfortunes in Russia: the power of darkness below; and, above, the darkness of power."

  An outburst of applause. Laughter.

  The long-faced student grasps the hilt of his sword for effect. The warden mutters wearily: "It's not necessary, stop . .."

  The student with the sword says to someone: "Find out what that boor's name is . . ."

  A PROPOSAL

  I'm walking along past the freight cars. In my hands I have a railroad-ticket punch.

  My ticket punch has been working for half a month.

  It's the chic branch line, Kislovodsk-Mineral Waters, served in the summer by students. And that's why I'm here in the Caucasus. I came here to earn a little money.

  Kislovodsk. I go out on the platform. At the entrance to the station there's an immense gendarme with medals on his chest. He is massive, like a monument.

  Bowing politely and smiling, the ticket seller approaches me.

  "Colleague," he says to me (although he is not a student), "a word with you . . . Next time don't punch the tickets with your punch, but return them to me . . ."

  He pronounces these words calmly, as though he were talking about the weather.

  Perplexed, I mutter: "What for? ... So you can ... sell them again?.. .

  "Well, yes ... I have an understanding with almost all your friends . . . Half and half."

  "Scoundrel!... You lie!" I mutter. "With all?"

  The ticket seller shrugs his shoulders.

  "Well, not with all," he says, "but with a lot ... And what surprises you so? Everybody does it ... Why, I could hardly live on my thirty-six rubles a month ... I don't even consider it a crime. They egg us on to this ..."

  I turn sharply and leave. The ticket seller runs after me.

  "Colleague," he says, "if you don't want to, you don't have to, I don't insist. . . only don't think of telling anybody about it. In the first place, no one will believe you. In the second place, it's impossible to prove. In the third place, you'll pass for a liar, a troublemaker..."

  Slowly, I mutter my way home ... It's raining ...

  I am more surprised than at any time in my life.

  ELVIRA

  The station stop Minutka. I have a quiet room with windows on the park.

  My peace and quiet do not last long. In the neighboring room there enters, just having arrived from Penza, the circus performer Elvira. On her passport she is called Nastia Gorokhova.

  This robust person is almost illiterate.

  In Penza she had a brief romance with a general. The general had gone off with his wife to the "sour waters" [Kislovodsk] Elvira arrived after him—it isn't known what she was counting on.

  All Elvira's thoughts from morning to night are oriented in the direction of the unfortunate general.

  Showing her arms, which under the circus tent had supported three men, Elvira says to me: "Generally speaking, I could kill him without blinking an eye. And I wouldn't get more than eight years for it either . . . What do you think?"

  "But really, what is it you want from him?" I ask her.

  "What do you mean what?" says Elvira. "I came here entirely for his sake. I'm living here for almost a month, and like a fool I'm crying my eyes out. I want he should be decent enough to pay my train fare both ways. I want to write him a letter about this."

  Because of Elvira's illiteracy, I write this letter. I'm inspired. The hope guides my hand that Elvira, once she's received the money, will leave for Penza.

  I don't remember what I wrote. I only remember that when I read this letter to Elvira, she said: "Yes! That's the outcry of a woman's soul . . . And I'll kill him immediately if he doesn't send me anything after this."

  My letter turned the general inside out. And he sent Elvira an enclosure of fifty rubles. That was an immense and even a grandiose sum in those days. v Elvira was stunned.

  "With money like that," she said, "it would just be dumb to leave Kislovodsk."

  She remained. And she remained with the notion that I was the sole reason for her wealth.

  She almost never left my room.

  It was just as well that the World War began soon after that. I left.

  1915-17

  NERVES

  Two soldiers are butchering a pig. The pig is squealing so, one cannot bear it. I come up closer.

  One soldier is sitting on the pig. The hand of the other, armed with a knife, skillfully rips open the belly. The white lard of that unbounded fatness spills out on both sides.

  The squealing is such, one has to stop one's ears.

  "You might stun her with something, brothers," I say. "Why shred her up like that?"

  "Impossible, your excellency," says the first soldier, sitt
ing on the pig. "It wouldn't have the same taste."

  Seeing my silver sword and the emblem on my shoulder straps, the soldier jumps up. The pig breaks loose.

  "Sit, sit," I say, "just finish up as quick as you can."

  "Quick isn't good either," says the soldier with the knife. "If you're too quick, you spoil the fat."

  After looking at me with compassion, the first soldier says: "Your excellency, it's war! People are suffering. And you feel sorry for a pig."

  The second soldier says, after having made a final gesture with the knife: "Nerves, their excellencies have."

  The conversation is assuming an overly familiar tone. This won't do. I want to leave, but I don't.

  The first soldier says: "In the Avgustovsky forests, I had a bone shattered in this hand. To the operating table, right away. Half a glass of liquor. They cut. But I'm eating sausage while they do."

  "And weren't you sick?"

  "How not sick? Damn sick ... I ate the sausage. I say, 'Give me some cheese.' I'd just eaten the cheese, and the surgeon says, Tinished, let's sew it up.' 'Please,' I say ... What would you have

  done, your excellency? You wouldn't have been able to stand that,"

  "Weak nerves, their excellencies have," the second soldier says once more.

  I leave.

  REGIMENT IN A BOX

  The regiment, stretched along the highway. The soldiers are worn out, exhausted. For the second day, almost without resting, we are plodding along the fields of Galicia.

  We are retreating. We don't have any ammunition.

  The regimental commander orders us to sing songs.

  The machine gunners, on their prancing horses, are singing: "Along the ocean's blue waves."

  On all sides we hear shooting, explosions. One has the impression that we are in a box.

  We pass through a village. The soldiers run to the huts. We have an order to destroy everything on the highway.

  It's a dead village. No point in feeling sorry. There isn't a soul here. There aren't even any dogs. There isn't even one of those chickens that usually scratch around deserted villages.

  The grenadiers run up to the small huts and set fire to their straw roofs. Smoke lifts upward to the sky.

  And, suddenly, in a moment, the dead village comes to life. Women are running, children. Men appear. Cows bellow. Horses neigh. We hear outcries, weeping, and squealing.

  I see how one soldier, who has just set fire to a roof, confusedly snuffs it out with his cap.

  I turn aside. We go on.

  We go on till evening. And then we go on by night. All around, the glow of fires. Shots. Explosions.

  Toward morning, the regimental commander says: "Now I can say it. For two days our regiment has been in a box. Tonight we got out of it."

  We drop down on the grass, and, immediately, we are asleep.

  MADE IT FOR NOTHING

  As a courier, I approach the high gate. This is division staff headquarters.

  I'm nervous and alarmed. The collar of my field jacket is ohdone. My cap is on the back of my head.

  Dismounting from my horse, I walk through the gate.

  The staff officer, Lieutenant Zadlovsky, approaches me headlong. He speaks through set teeth: "That's no way . . . Button up that collar."

  I button my collar and straighten my cap.

  Staff officers are standing near the saddled horses.

  I see the division commander among them, General Gabaev, and the chief of staff, Colonel Shaposhnikov.

  I report.

  "I know," the general says irritably.

  "What message shall I take back to my commander, your excellency?"

  "Take this . . ."

  I feel some insult is on the tip of the general's tongue, but he restrains himself.

  The officers glance around. The chief of staff is almost laughing.

  "Take this back . . . Well, what can I send back to a man who has lost his regiment? ... You made it here for nothing ..."

  I leave, embarrassed.

  Again, I go galloping off on my horse. And suddenly I see the commander of my regiment. He is tall and thin. He's holding his cap in his hands. The wind stirs his side whiskers. He stands in the field and tries to restrain the soldiers who are making off. These soldiers are not from our regiment. The commander runs up to each one with a shout and a prayer.

  The soldiers walk submissively to the edge of the forest. I see our reserve battalion there, and a train of carts.

  I approach the officers. The regimental commander is approaching them too. He mutters: "My glorious Mingrelsky Regiment has been destroyed."

  Hurling his cap to the ground, the commander stamps his foot in anger.

  We comfort him. We say that we have five hundred men left. That's not just a few. We'll have a regiment again.

  COME BACK TOMORROW

  At the entrance I meet Tata T. She is so beautiful and so dazzling that I turn my eyes away from her as from the sun.

  Seeing me, she laughs. She examines my figure with curiosity and touches the silver hilt of my sword. Then she says that I'm

  quite grown up now and that it isn't even nice for us to be seen together like this. Right away there would be gossip.

  We climb the stairs.

  Tata adjusts her hair in the mirror. I come up to her and embrace her. She laughs. She is surprised that I've become so bold. She embraces me as she once did on the staircase.

  We kiss. Compared to this, the whole world strikes me as worthless. She, too, is oblivious to what is going on around us.

  Then she looks at her watch and gives a little screech of terror. She says: "My husband's coming any minute."

  And, at that moment, the door opens and her husband enters.

  Tata scarcely manages to adjust her hairdo.

  The husband sits down in an armchair and looks at us silently.

  Without losing her presence of mind, Tata says: "Nicholas, just look at him, how he's grown. Why he just this moment arrived from the front."

  Smiling sourly, the husband looks at me.

  The conversation gets nowhere. So, bowing ceremoniously, I take my leave. Tata accompanies me.

  Opening the door to the staircase, she whispers to me: "Come back tomorrow at noon. He leaves at eleven."

  I nod my head silently.

  Her husband's face and his sour smile do not leave my mind that whole day.

  In the morning I send Tata a note that I'm leaving right away for the front.

  In the evening I leave for Moscow. I spend a few days there, and return to my regiment.

  THE TWENTIETH OF JULY

  I'm standing in the trenches and looking curiously at the ruins around me. This is Smorgon. The right wing of our regiment rests against the kitchen gardens of Smorgon.

  This little place is not without renown. It was from here that Napoleon took flight, turning over his command to Murat.

  It's getting dark. I return to my hut.

  A stifling July night. Removing my field jacket, I write letters.

  It's already close to one. I need to get some sleep. I want to call my orderly. But, suddenly, I hear some kind of noise. The noise grows. I hear footfalls. And the clinking of pots. But no outcries. And no shooting.

  I run out of my hut. And, suddenly, a sweet, stifling wave engulfs me. I cry out: "Gas! . . . Masks! . . ." And I fling myself back into the hut. My gas mask is hanging there on a nail.

  The candle had gone out when I had rushed headlong out of the hut. I groped for the gas mask with my hand and began to put it on. I forgot to open the lower stopper. I'm suffocating. Once having opened the stopper, I run out into the trenches.

  Around me, soldiers are running, bandaging up their faces with masks of gauze.

  Having fumbled up some matches from my pocket, I light the brushwood which is lying in front of the trenches. This brushwood has been prepared earlier. In case of gas attack.

  Now the fire illuminates our positions. I see that all the grenadiers
have gotten out of the trenches and are lying beside the bushes. I am also lying near a bush. I don't feel well. My head is spinning. I swallowed a lot of gas when I shouted: "Masks!"

  Near the bush, things go a little more easily. Even quite well. The fire drives the gas upward, and it passes away without immersing us. I take off my mask.

  We lie there four hours.

  It begins to grow light. Now it is apparent how the gas is proceeding. It is not a solid wall. It is a cloud of smoke about ten yards wide. Slowly it moves upon us, driven by a gentle breeze.

  We could go off to the right or to the left, and then the gas would move on past without touching us.

  Now it is not terrifying. From somewhere I already hear jokes and laughter. It is the grenadiers pushing one another into puffs of gas. A racket. Laughter.

  I look at the German side through my binoculars. Now I see how they're letting the gas out of cylinders. It's a repulsive spectacle. Anger flares up in me when I see how methodically and cold-bloodedly they are doing it.

  I order my men to open fire on those scoundrels. I order them to fire all machine guns and small arms, though I understand well enough that we can do little harm at this distance of about fifteen hundred yards.

  There is a weak burst. The grenadiers fire a few shots. And suddenly I see that many soldiers are lying dead. And they are the majority. Others are groaning and are unable to lift themselves from out of the brush fire.

  I hear the sounds of a bugle in the German trenches. The poisoners are blowing retreat. The gas attack is over.

  Leaning on a stick, I make my way to the hospital. There's blood on my handkerchief from a terrifying fit of retching.

  I walk along the road. I see the yellowed grass and a hundred dead sparrows that have fallen on the road.

  1920-26

  RUBBISH

  The editorial offices of the literary journal Sovremennik.

  I had given this journal five of my best small stories. And I had come for an answer.

  Before me is one of the editors—the poet, M. Kuzmin. He is polite to the point of courtliness. Even beyond the call of duty. But I see by his face that he intends to communicate something unpleasant.

  He hesitates. I come to his aid.

  "Probably my stories don't quite fit in with the journal's plan?" I say.