And Other Stories Of Communist Russia

by Zoshchenko,Mikhail.

  He says: "You understand, this is a literary journal . . . But your stories ... No, they are very funny, amusing ... But they are written .. . But this . . ."

  "Rubbish? Is that what you want to say," I ask. And I see in my mind's eye the comment a teacher had once written on a high-school composition of mine: "Rubbish."

  Kuzmin makes an open gesture with his hands.

  "God forbid. I didn't want to say that at all. On the contrary. Your stories show a great deal of talent... But you'll agree yourself—they lean a bit to caricature."

  "No. Not caricature," I say.

  "Well, take the language you use, for example . . ."

  'The language isn't a caricature. That's the syntax of the street ... of the people ... I heightened it, maybe, just a little, so it would be satiric, so it would criticize . . ."

  "Let's not argue," says he softly. "Give us one of your conventional novelle or stories . . . And, rest assured, we think very highly of your work."

  I leave the office. I do not have the same feelings I had in high school. I am not even indignant.

  "God help them," I think. "I'll make out without literary journals. They need something 'conventional.' They need some-

  thing that looks like a classic. That imposes itself on them. It would be easy enough to do. But I'm not about to write for readers who don't exist. The people have a different view of literature."

  I am not grieved. I know I am right.

  MYSELF TO BLAME

  Evening. I'm walking along the Nevsky with K.

  I got to know her in Kislovodsk.

  She is pretty, gay, she has wit. She has that joy in living which I lack. And perhaps this attracts me to her more than anything else.

  We walk tenderly arm in arm. We go out along the Neva. We walk along the dark path of the shore.

  K. is saying something that has no end. But I don't pay much attention to what she is saying. I hear her words as music.

  But then I hear something I don't quite like in this music. I listen more closely.

  "This is the second week I've been walking the streets with you," she says. "We've been all over these stupid shores and parks. I'd just like to sit down with you in a parlor somehow, and chatter and drink tea."

  "Let's go to a caf£," I say.

  "No. We'd be seen there."

  Ah, yes, I'd quite forgotten. She leads a complicated life. A jealous husband, a very jealous lover. Many enemies who would report they had seen us together.

  We remain on the shore. We embrace one another. We kiss. She mutters: "Och, how dumb it is that this is a street."

  We walk a little and kiss again. She puts her hand over her eyes. These endless kisses are making her head spin.

  We come to the gate of some house. K. mutters: "I've got to go in here, to the dressmaker. You wait for me here. I'm only going to have a dress measured, and I'll be right back."

  I walk around near the house. I walk for ten minutes, fifteen, finally she appears. She's gay. She's laughing.

  "Everything's all right," she says. "I'm getting a very nice dress. It's very modest, without pretensions."

  She takes me by the hand and I accompany her home. I meet her again five days later. She says: "If you wish, we can be alone together in a house today. It belongs to a friend of mine."

  We approach some house. I recognize this house. It was here

  at the gate that I waited for her for twenty minutes. This is the house where her dressmaker lives.

  We go up to the fourth floor. She opens the apartment with her key. We enter a room. It's a very well laid-out room. It's unlikely that this room belongs to a dressmaker.

  From professional habit, I page through a book I find on the night table. On the first page I see a name that's known to me. It's the name of K.'s lover.

  She laughs.

  "Yes, we're in his room," she says. "But don't worry. He's gone to Kronstadt for two days."

  "Ugh!" I say, "I'm worried about something else. That means you were with him then?"

  "When?" she asks.

  "When I was waiting for you at the gate for twenty minutes."

  She laughs. She closes my mouth with a kiss. She says: "You had only yourself to blame."

  THE TRAIN WAS LATE

  Alia came to me all out of breath. She said: "He almost wouldn't let me go ... I say, 'Oh, come on, Nicholas, I've got to see my best friend off. She's leaving for Moscow and God knows when she'll return

  I asked Alia: "When does the train leave with that friend of yours?"

  She laughed and clapped her hands.

  "So you see," she said, "you believed it, too ... No one is leaving. I thought it up so I could come to you."

  "The Moscow train leaves at ten-thirty," I said. "That means you've got to be home around eleven."

  By the time she looked at her watch, it was already twelve. She gave a little cry. She ran to the telephone without even putting on her slippers.

  Taking off the phone, she sat down in an armchair. She was trembling from the cold and from agitation.

  I tossed her a small rug. She covered her feet with it.

  "Why are you calling?" I told her. "Better get dressed as quick as you can and go."

  She waved her hand at me indignantly.

  "Nick, dear," she said into the phone. "Just think, the train was late and didn't leave till now. I'll be home in ten minutes."

  I don't know what her husband said to her, but she answered: "I told you in plain Russian—the train was late. I'll be home right away."

  Must have been, the husband said, it's twelve o'clock.

  "Is it really?" she said. "Well, I don't know, by your watch, but here at the station . . ."

  She turned her head upward and gazed at my ceiling.

  "Here at the station," she said, "it's about eleven."

  She squinted her eyes as though she were looking at a distant clock in the railway station.

  "Yes," she said, "about eleven, maybe a couple minutes past. You've got an archaic watch . . ."

  Hanging up the phone, she started to laugh.

  At that time this sawdust-stuffed little doll might well have been one of my most welcome guests. But at that particular moment I was angry with her. I said: "Why do you lie so shamelessly. He'll check his watch and see you're lying."

  "But he really believed that I'm at the railroad station," she said, applying some lipstick to her lips.

  Having finished with the lipstick, she added: "And what kind of talk is this anyway. I don't like to hear it at all. I know how to go about it myself. He runs around with a revolver, threatens to kill my friends and me with them . . . What's more, he doesn't even take into account that you're a writer . . . I'm convinced he'd shoot you splendidly."

  I growled something in reply.

  When she was dressed, she said: "What's the matter, angry? Maybe you don't want me to come any more?"

  "As you like," I answered.

  "Yes, I won't come to you any more," she said. "I can see that you don't really love me at all."

  She left, giving me a haughty toss of the head. She did this splendidly for her nineteen years.

  My God, how I'd weep now! But then I was satisfied. Moreover, within a month she came back.

  THE READING

  I consented to give readings in several cities. That was an unlucky day in my life.

  The first reading was in Kharkov, then one in Rostov.

  I was taken aback. They greeted me with storms of applause;

  but when I was through, they hardly clapped. That means, somehow I don't please the audience, I'm cheating it somehow. How?

  It's true, I don't read like an actor, but rather monotonously, sometimes sluggishly. But don't they, after all, come to my performance merely to hear a "humorist" perform? That's it! Maybe they think: If actors read so amusingly, what will the author himself kick up with now.

  Every evening I was stretched on the rack.

  It's hard for me to go out on the stage.
The awareness that I'm "cheating the public again" spoils my composure more and more. I open the book and I mutter the title of a story.

  Someone shouts from the gallery: "Read 'Vania' . . . The Aristocrat' . . . What rubbish you read!"

  "My God!" I think. "Why did I ever agree to these performances?"

  I take a melancholy look at my watch.

  They're sending slips of paper up to the stage. That's a breather for me. I close the book.

  I turn over the first slip. I read it aloud: "If you're the author of these stories, why are you reading them?"

  I'm annoyed. I cry out in response: "But if you're a reader of these stories, why in the hobgoblin do you listen to them?"

  Laughter in the audience, applause.

  I unfold another slip: "Why do you read us what we all know, tell us something funnier, how you managed to get here, for instance."

  In a furious voice, I shout: "I sat in the train. My family wept and begged me not to go. They said: They'll torture you with idiotic questions.'"

  An outburst of applause. Laughter.

  Ah, if I'd only walk across the stage on my hands now, or roll across on a single wheel—it would be a dandy performance.

  My manager whispers something to me from backstage: "Tell something about yourself. The audience likes that."

  Submissively, I begin to recount my autobiography.

  The slips of paper come flying up to the stage again: "Are you married? ... How many children do you have? ... Do you know Esenin? . . ."

  It's quarter to eleven. Possible to quit.

  Sighing morosely, I leave the stage amidst applause.

  I console myself with the thought that these are spectacle

  seekers who would show up with the same enthusiasm for the performance of any comedian or juggler.

  Without having fulfilled all the terms of my contract, I return to Leningrad.

  MADNESS

  A man enters my room. He sits down in an armchair.

  For a moment he sits in silence, listening. Then he gets up and shuts the door tight.

  He goes up to the wall, and, putting his ear to it, he listens.

  I begin to grasp that he's a madman.

  Having listened at the wall, he sits down in the armchair again and hides his face with both his hands. I see that he is in a state of desperation.

  "What's wrong?" I ask.

  "They're after me," he says. "I was riding in the trolley just now and I clearly heard voices: There he is ... get him . . . grab him

  He covers his face with his hands again. Then he says calmly: "You're the only one who can save me . . ."

  "How?"

  "We will change names. You will be Gorshkov, and I will be the poet Zoshchenko." (That is just what he said: "poet.")

  "All right. I agree," I say.

  He flings himself toward me and shakes my hand.

  "And who is after you?" I ask.

  "That I can't say."

  "But from now on I've got to know, since I bear your name."

  Wringing his hands, he says: "That's just it—I don't know myself. I only hear their voices. And at night I see their hands. They reach out for me from all sides. I know they will seize me and strangle me."

  His nervous chill communicates itself to me. I don't feel well. I'm dizzy. There are spots in front of my eyes. If he doesn't leave right away, I will probably pass out. He influences me murderously.

  Pulling myself together with all my strength, I mutter: "Go. You've got my name now. You can rest easy."

  He leaves with his face alight.

  I lie down in my bed and I feel a terrifying melancholy possess me.

  IV. CONCLUSION

  [Re-examining these "candid photographs," of which in the original there are sixty-three, Zoshchenko comes to the conclusion that, although he has had a hard life, these incidents, either in themselves or in their totality, do not really account for his extreme melancholia. He-begins to feel that the solution to his problem lies in pushing his memories farther back, to the years of his childhood. Childhood scenes begin to obsess him.]

  From 5 to 15 Years

  It is only in myth that the prodigal son returns to his father's house.

  GOLDFISH

  There is a bowl of goldfish on the window sill.

  Two fishies are swimming around in the bowl.

  I throw them a little piece of sugar. Let them eat. But the fish swim past indifferently.

  Must be they feel ill, that they don't eat. Maybe it's all the days they spend in water. Now, if they'd only lie on the window sill for a bit. Then, maybe, they'd have an appetite.

  Dipping my hand in the bowl, I haul out the fishies and put them on the window sill. No, they don't care for it there, either. They thrash about. And still refuse to eat.

  I throw the fishies back into the water again.

  But in the water things are even worse for them. Look, now they're swimming belly up. Must be they're asking out; out of the fish bowl.

  I haul the fishies out again and put them in a cigarette box.

  In half an hour, I open the box. The fish have died.

  Mama says angrily: "What did you do that for?"

  I say: "I wanted them to be better off."

  Mother says: "Don't be an idiot. Fish are made to live in water."

  I weep bitterly, humiliated. I know myself that fish are made to live in water. I only wanted to rescue them from this misfortune.

  GO TO SLEEP, NOW

  It's dark in the room. Only a small lamp is burning. Near our beds, our nurse sits and tells a story.

  Rocking on her chair, the nurse speaks monotonously: "The good fairy dipped her hand under the pillow, and there was a serpent. She dipped her hand under the mattress, and there were two serpents and a viper. The fairy looked under the bed, and there were four serpents, three vipers, and a hedgehog.

  "At this the good fairy said not a word, but dipped her feet in her slippers; but in each slipper, two toads are sitting. The fairy tore her coat from the hook, to dress herself and leave that place. She looks, and in each coat sleeve there are six vipers and four toads.

  "The fairy gathered all this filth together, and she says: Til tell you what. I shall wish you no harm, but don't you hinder me from leaving this place.'

  "Then all this filth spoke and answered the good fairy like this: 'We will do you no harm, good fairy. We thank you that you have not killed us for this.'

  "But at this point a thunderclap was heard. And before the good fairy stood the wicked fairy.

  " Tm the one,' she says, 'who loosed all this filth on you. But you,' she says, 'made friends with them, and that surprises me. Thanks to this, I am going to enchant you into an ordinary cow.' At this point a thunderclap was heard again. We look and, instead of the good fairy, an ordinary cow is grazing there . . ."

  The nurse falls silent. We tremble in terror. My sister Julia says: "But what happened to the filth?"

  The nurse says: "About that, I don't know. Probably the wicked fairy scattered them about her place, just as they were."

  "Is that under the mattress and under the pillow?" I ask, sitting up from my pillow.

  Nurse rises from her chair and says as she goes out: "Well, enough talk. Go to sleep, now."

  We lie in our beds, afraid to move. Lelia whispers on purpose in a terribly hoarse voice: "H-o-o-o."

  Julia and I give a little shriek of terror. We beg Lelia not to frighten us. But she is already asleep.

  I sit up in bed for a long time, unwilling to risk lying down on my pillow.

  In the morning I refuse to drink milk, because it comes from the enchanted fairy.

  I AM NOT TO BLAME

  We are sitting at the table eating bliny.

  Suddenly, my father takes my plate and begins to eat my bliny. I bellow.

  My father is wearing glasses. He looks serious. Has a beard. Nevertheless, he laughs. He says: "Look how greedy he is. He begrudges his father a single £>//n."

  I sa
y: "One blin —if you like; eat. I thought you were going to eat them all."

  The soup is brought in.

  I say: "Papa, would you like my soup?"

  Papa says: "No, I will wait until dessert. Then, if you let me have your dessert—you really are a good boy."

  Thinking we were going to have cranberry sauce with milk for dessert, I say: "If you like. You may eat my dessert."

  Suddenly they bring in whipped cream, to which I am by no means indifferent.

  Pushing my plate of whipped cream over toward my father, I say: "If you like, eat it; if you are so greedy."

  My father frowns and leaves the table.

  My mother says: "Go to your father and excuse yourself."

  I say: "I won't go. I am not to blame."

  I leave the table without having touched my dessert.

  In the evening, when I'm lying in my bed, my father comes up to me. He is holding my plate of whipped cream in his hands.

  My father says: "Well, why didn't you eat your whipped cream?"

  I say: "Papa, let's go halves. Why should we quarrel about it?"

  My father kisses me and feeds me the whipped cream with a spoon.

  IN THE STUDIO

  [In a number of previous sketches not included here Zosh-chenko already indicated something of the complex relationship between his mother and his handsome artist-father, much loved by women.]

  Papa has not been with us for a long time. My mother is dressing me, and we are going to see my father in his studio.

  Mama walks hurriedly. She pulls me by the hand and I can hardly keep up.

  We climb to the seventh floor. We knock. Papa opens the door.

  Seeing us, he frowns at first. Then, taking me in his arms, he throws me up in the air, almost to the ceiling. He laughs and kisses me.

  Mama smiles. She sits down with papa beside her, on the divan. And they start up some sort of mysterious conversation. I walk around the studio. There are paintings on the easels. On the walls there are also paintings. Immense windows. Disorder.

  I look at the boxes of paints. Brushes. All kinds of little bottles.

  I've seen it all already, but my parents are still talking. It's very pleasant that they are talking so quietly, without shouting. They are not quarreling.

  I do not disturb them. I walk around the boxes and the pictures a second time.

  At last my father says to my mother: "Well, I'm very glad. All is well."