by Teffi
5 Quoted in I.V. Odoyevtseva, Na beregakh Seny (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaya literatura, 1989), p. 73.
6 Marc Raeff, Russia Abroad: A Cultural History of the Russian Emigration 1919–1939 (New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 4.
7 From a letter by Teffi dated 14 December 1943, quoted in E.M. Trubilova, ‘V poiskakh strany nigde’, in A.T. Averchenko, N.A. Teffi: Rasskazy (Moscow: Molodaya gvardiya, 1990), pp. 221–22.
8 Robert Chandler, Russian Magic Tales (London: Penguin, 2012), p. 166.
9 The Soviet experiment enjoyed widespread sympathy among leading literary critics in the West. See W. Bruce Lincoln, ‘Émigrés against utopia’, in Between Heaven and Hell: The Story of a Thousand Years of Artistic Life in Russia (New York: Viking, 1998).
10 N.A. Teffi, ‘Tot svet’, Russkiye novosti, 3 August 1945, p. 4.
11 From a letter by Teffi quoted in L.A. Spiridonova, ‘Teffi’, in Russkaya satiricheskaya literature nachala XX veka (Moscow: Nauka, 1977), p. 169.
12 Stanislav Nikonenko, ‘Nesravnennaya Teffi’, in N.A. Teffi, Moya letopis’ (Moscow: Vagrius, 2004), p. 14.
13 See E.M. Trubilova’s essay ‘Rozhdyennaya v voskresen’ye’, in N.A. Teffi, Sobraniye sochineny, vol. 7 (Moscow: Lakom, 2001), p. 8.
14 Poet and critic Georgy Ivanov, quoted in V. Vereshchagin,‘Teffi’, Russkaya Mysl’, 21 November 1968, p. 8.
PART I
Before the Revolution
A RADIANT EASTER
Like a torch, they passed the good news one to another, and, as if from a torch, each lit from it his own flame.
— From Legends about the Lives of the First Christians
SAMOSOV STOOD there gloomily, watching the deacon with the incense and thinking, “Go on, swing that incense, swing that incense! Think you can swing yourself into a bishopric? Some hope!”
Wanting to move closer to his boss, who was also praying in the church, he slowly but surely elbowed away a small boy. He wanted his boss to know he was there—this was why he had come.
“He’s brought his wife along,” muttered Samosov, crossing himself. “A right bitch she is! Forty lovers—and off she goes to church with her pencilled eyebrows! Here at least, in the presence of God, you might think she’d show a little shame. The man’s a fool, too—he imagined she had a dowry. And she, of course, didn’t want to starve to death—she was only too ready to marry him.”
“Christ is risen!” proclaimed the priest.
“He is risen indeed!” Samosov responded with feeling. And then, in an undertone: “And he’s brought his mother-in-law along too! Of course! If he left her at home, she’d be either smashing the china or forcing the safe. All she cares about is getting those daughters of hers married off. They’re a gaggle of monsters—she’s trying to get them off her hands as cheap as she can. And they can’t even buy the old woman a decent hat! Their idea of fun is to stick an old galosh on her head. To make everyone laugh. A fine show of respect for an old woman… But like it or not, she did bring you monsters into the world! There’s no getting away from that… Go on, swing that incense! They’ll make you an archimandrite! A metropolitan!”
The service came to an end. With dignified deference Samosov approached his boss.
“Yes, risen indeed!”
They exchanged kisses.
He kissed the hand of the boss’s wife. He kissed the hand of the boss’s mother-in-law.
“Yes, yes! It brings me such joy to see this crowd of simple people professing their faith in the timelessness of ordinances… which… My wife? No, she’s stayed behind, you see, managing the household… A regular Martha from the New Testament.”
He left the church, continuing for a while to sense both an inner glow from this meeting with a superior and the scent of floral eau de Cologne on his moustache. But little by little he returned to his senses.
“He might have invited me back to his home—so we could all break our fast together! The women were glad to see me! They stuck their hands out for a kiss. I suppose there aren’t many people eager to kiss their manky paws.”
He went home.
His wife and daughter were already at table, about to eat their ham and paskha.1
His wife had the hurt and confused look of someone who is constantly being scolded.
His daughter’s large nose slanted slightly to the right, dragging along with it a squinting left eye that peered out at the world with suspicion.
Samosov thought for a moment: “Oh, I like that! They think I’ve got presents for them!”
He banged his fist on the table.
“Who the devil gave you permission to break fast without me?”
“What do you mean?” asked his wife in amazement. “We thought you were at your boss’s. You said yourself—”
“A man can’t even get any peace in his own home!” said Samosov, almost in tears. He very much wanted some ham, but it didn’t seem right to start eating in the middle of a family row. “Have some tea brought to my room!”
He slammed the door after him.
“Anyone else would have come back from church and said, ‘The Lord has blessed us’,” said the daughter, looking at her mother with one eye and at her plate with the other. “But we never do anything like normal people!”
“Who is it you’re referring to?” asked the mother. “Your father? How dare you speak like that! Day in, day out, without a moment’s rest, your father ploughs away with his pen like a real workhorse. Then he comes home to break his fast and his daughter won’t even exchange Easter greetings with him. Still thinking about Andrei Petrovich, are you? I’m sure you’re ever so important to him! And how is it you try to charm him? By being rude to your parents? A girl with any self-respect does what she can to make life easier for her parents. She tries to earn a little money herself. Yulia… What’s her name? You know the name, that bearded lady… Yulia Pastrana’s been supporting her parents since the age of two. She’s been helping her other relatives as well.”
“So am I to blame that I wasn’t given a brilliant education? It’s easy enough to find secretarial work if you’ve been brilliantly educated.”
The mother stood up in a dignified manner.
“I’ll have tea sent up to my room! Thank you! You’ve ruined the entire holiday.”
She walked out.
Looking around brightly, her face flushed and joyful, the cook came into the dining room with a red-painted egg in her hands.
“Christhasrisenmiss! The Lord grantyouonlythebest! And a good husband! A capital young husband!”
“The Devil take you! Cheeky creature! Slobbering all over my face like that!”
“The Lord have mercy!” said the cook, taking a step back. “Why on earth… How can you refuse a fellow Christian an Easter kiss? So what if my visage is somewhat flushed? I’m speechless for words… All day long I’ve done nothing but bake and boil—the mere exhaustion of it all’s enough to make a woman red in the visage. The stove’s been alight all day—there’s such an inflammation in there you can hardly breathe. And it’s hot outside, too, though it did mizzle a bit in the morning! Last year was a thousand times cooler! It snowed on our way to Mass.”
“Oh, leave me in peace!” squealed the young lady. “Or I’ll tell mother to give you the sack.”
She spun on her heels and left the room, strutting off in the manner of all mistresses who have just quarrelled with one of their servants.
“Oo-ooh, I’m terrible scared!” the cook sang out after her. “Oo-ooh, you’ve put the fear of God in me… Huh! Pay me my wages and you can do as you please! I don’t think I’ve sniffed five kopeks from you since Christmas. I’ll clear the table, but then I’m lying down and I’m not making no one no tea. If it’s slave labour you want, you can find yourselves a convict. He can make tea for you even in the middle of the night.”
She took a dirty plate from the table and then, keeping to the system followed by every maid-of-all-work, placed a spoon on the plate, another plate on
top of the spoon, a glass on this second plate, and a dish of ham on the glass. She was about to place a tray of cups on top of the ham when everything crashed to the floor.
“Oh, to hell with it all!”
All she had left in her hand was the original plate.
The cook thought for a while, then tossed the plate into the pile too.
After scratching behind one ear, underneath her headscarf, she suddenly, as if remembering something, went back into the kitchen.
On a stool, lapping up milk and water from a little dish, was a scrawny cat. A little girl—an orphan, just to wash the dishes—was squatting down in front of this cat, looking at her and repeating, “Drink it up, my little darling, drink it up! Yes, you’ve fasted enough. Let’s hope some good food will plump you up quickly.”
The cook seized the girl by one ear.
“Who’s been smashing china in the dining room? Huh? Is that what they keep you here for? To smash up the china? Measly-faced little tyke! Huh? Who told you to go and clear up in the dining room? You little blockhead—tomorrow they’ll give you what for!”
The little girl gave a frightened whimper and blew her nose in her apron. She rubbed her ear, blew her nose in the hem of her skirt, let out a sob, blew her nose in the corner of her headscarf, then suddenly rushed at the cat, pushed her onto the floor and gave her a good kick.
“To hell with you, you scrounging beast! You don’t give us a moment’s peace, you heathen creature. Milk, milk, milk—that’s all you ever want! Well, I hope you snuff it before you die!”
Encouraged by the girl’s foot, the cat leapt out onto the staircase, barely managing to get away with her tail, which was almost chopped off by the door.
She took refuge behind the dustbin and sat there for a long time without stirring, afraid that a mighty enemy might be searching for her.
Then she began to pour out her grief and bewilderment to the dustbin. But what did the dustbin care? It said nothing.
“Oo-au!”
That was all the cat knew.
“Oo-au!”
But who could make any sense of that?
1910
Notes
1 paskha: A sweet cream-cheese dish eaten at Easter (Russian).
THE CORSICAN
THE INTERROGATION had been dragging on, and the police officer felt exhausted; he declared a break and went off to his office for a rest.
With a sweet smile of satisfaction he was approaching the couch; suddenly he stopped, his face taking on a twisted look, as if he had seen something foul.
The other side of the wall, a loud bass voice was singing, clearly enunciating each word: “Forward, forward, O working class!”1
Not quite able to keep up with this, out of time and out of tune, a timid and hoarse little voice was singing: “Fowad, fowad!”
“What on earth’s going on?” the officer exclaimed, pointing to the wall.
The clerk straightened up a little in his chair.
“I have already had occasion to report to you on the matter of this agent.”
“What are you on about? Keep it simple.”
“Agent Fialkin has expressed a pressing and imperative wish to enter the ranks of our provocateurs. This is the second winter running that he has been on duty by the Mikhailov tramway. He’s a quiet chap. Only he’s ambitious beyond his station in life. Here I am, he says, wasting my youth and expending the best of my strength on the trams. He is concerned about the slow progress of his career on the trams and the impossibility of applying his exceptional abilities—that is, supposing he possesses such abilities.”
“For juthtith thake we thpill our blood,” went the thin voice behind the wall.
“Out of tune!” said the bass.
“And is he talented?” asked the officer.
“He’s ambitious—even excessively ambitious. He wants to become a provocateur, but he doesn’t know a single revolutionary song. He’s been moaning on and on about this. And so police constable No. 4711 has come to his rescue. No. 4711 knows every song perfectly—you’d think he had the music right there in front of him. Now, of course, most constables know the words well enough. You can hardly block your ears when you’re out on the streets. But this one has a fine feel for music as well. So he’s teaching Fialkin.”
“Well, well! And so now they’re belting out the ‘Warszawianka’,” the officer murmured dreamily. “Ambition’s no bad thing. It can help a man get on in the world. Take Napoleon. A simple Corsican, but he achieved… quite something…”
“The people’s flag is burning red. It’s sheltered oft our martyred dead,” growled constable No. 4711.
“They seem to be on another tune already,” said the officer, suddenly suspicious. “Is he teaching him all the revolutionary songs in one go?”
“Every last one of them. Fialkin’s in a hurry. He thinks there’s an important conspiracy being hatched.”
“Well, there’s certainly no lack of ambition round here!”
“The see-eed of the future,” Fialkin bleated from behind the wall.
“The energy of the Devil,” sighed the officer. “They say that when Napoleon was just a simple Corsican…”
From the staircase below came muffled thumps and a kind of roar.
“And what’s that?” asked the officer, raising his eyebrows.
“That’s our lot, on the ground floor. They eat there. They’re getting agitated.”
“What about?”
“Seems they can hear the singing. They don’t like it.”
“Damn it! This really is a bit awkward. People out on the street might hear, too. They’ll think there’s a protest meeting here in this building.”
“Damn you!” said the bass the other side of the wall. “Howling like a dog! Is that the way a revolutionary sings? A revolutionary sings with an open heart. He makes a clear sound. Every word can be heard. But you just whimper into your cheeks, and your eyes keep darting about. Keep your eyes still! I’m saying this for the last time. Or I’ll up and leave. If you’re really so keen to have lessons, you can go and find yourself a Maximalist!”2
“Now he’s losing his temper,” grinned the clerk. “A real Vera Figner.”3
“Ambition! Ambition!” the officer repeated. “And he’s taken it into his head to be a provocateur… No, brother, there’s no rose without thorns. Court martials don’t have time for long deliberations. Get yourself arrested, brother, and no one will bother to check whether you’re a revolutionary or whether you’re the purest of provocateurs. You’ll swing for it anyway.”
“Gluttons grow fat on workers’ sweat,” roared the bass, letting himself go.
“Ow! It’s even making my teeth ache! Can’t anyone find a way to talk him out of all this?”
“But how can they?” sighed the clerk. “He’s a man possessed. People are all such careerists nowadays.”
“There must be some way to convince him. Tell him the fatherland needs competent sleuths every bit as much as it needs provocateurs. My tooth’s really hurting…”
“You gave your life in sacrifice,” roared constable No. 4711.
“You gave your life in sacrifice,” the agent bleated pathetically.
“To hell with it all!” yelled the officer, and ran out of the room. “Get out of here!” he shouted down the corridor, his staccato voice hoarse with rage. “Scoundrels! Wanting to be provocateurs when they can’t even sing the ‘Marseillaise’! They’ll put our whole institution to shame! Corsicans! I’ll show you what happens to Corsicans!”
A door slammed. Everything went quiet. On the other side of the wall, someone let out a sob.
1910
Notes
1 From the ‘Warszawianka’ or ‘Warsaw song’, the Russian lyrics of which are traditionally attributed to Gleb Krzhizhanovsky (1872–1959). During the early twentieth century this song was one of the most popular revolutionary anthems in Russian-held Poland.
2 A Maximalist was a member of the extreme-left faction of th
e Social Revolutionary Party, known from 1906 as the Union of Social Revolutionary Maximalists.
3 Vera Figner (1852–1942), a notorious revolutionary figure, took part in an attempt to assassinate Alexander II.
WILL-POWER
LIPS PARTED FORLORNLY, Ivan Matveyich watched with glum resignation as the doctor’s little hammer bounced up and down his stout sides.
“I thought as much,” said the doctor, taking a step back. “You’ll have to give up the booze, that’s what. Drink much, do you?”
“A glass before breakfast and two before lunch. Cognac,” replied the patient, with a mixture of sorrow and sincerity.
“Aha. That will have to stop then. Think of your liver—look at the size of it now! How can you keep treating it like this?”
Ivan Matveyich looked where the doctor was pointing. He saw his bulging side, naked and defenceless. He sighed.
“Of course, you have nothing to worry about really,” continued the doctor. “With will-power like yours, you won’t have any trouble kicking the habit.”
“Yes, quite! Will-power I have in spades! That certainly isn’t something I need to work on!”
“Jolly good then. I’ll prescribe you some powders. Take them for a couple of weeks or so, then pop by and see me again. Thank you very much—you really don’t have anything to worry about.”
Ivan Matveyich mulled things over as he made his way down the street. “My liver’s not in the right place. That’s to say, it’s not where it should be. Things don’t look good… But as I have will-power, I can overcome anything, liver or no liver! And, it just so happens that I got to the end of a bottle today anyway, so fate is clearly on my side…”
