by Teffi
Now, what was I going to say? Oh yes, Merkin the dentist makes flatbread from fillings and cardamom. He sings its praises. “It’s got a lot going for it,” he says. “If it gets stuck in your teeth, it’ll do you nothing but good.” Oh, but what am I saying? Not again! Oh, goodness gracious! But I do love art, I really do!
1918
Notes
1 Mir iskusstva, or World of Art, was an artistic movement that flourished in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century.
2 Yeliseyev’s Emporium in its Art Nouveau premises at 56 Nevsky Prospekt, St Petersburg, was the flagship shop of Russia’s wealthy Yeliseyev merchant family. This landmark establishment, which sold fine food and wine, first opened its doors in 1903 and is still trading today under new ownership.
3 Lina Cavalieri (1874–1944) was a beautiful Italian opera soprano much loved in pre-revolutionary St Petersburg.
ONE DAY IN THE FUTURE
IF A STONE thrown in the air meets no resistance, it will describe an arc as dictated by the laws of physics and fall to the ground.
Right?
The foggy morning sky was suddenly cleft by a little pale-gold ray. The ray seemed to spurt out, as though bursting through sturdy grey fabric, but once it had escaped to freedom, it wasn’t sure what to do with itself. In the thrill of excitement it slid along the deep snow and the stone walls, sprang up and struck the great Venetian window of the count’s house. It struck the glass, then fled in alarm. But this quick strike was enough to wake Terenty Gurtsov, the broad-shouldered, heavy-bearded drayman (number plate 4511), who was sleeping there in the bedchamber.
Terenty stretched, grunted and rang for the servant.
At his summons a woman came to the door. Straightening her pince-nez, she respectfully enquired, “How may I be of assistance, sir?”
Terenty was not very fond of this woman.
“What took you so long?”
Even so, he appreciated her cleanliness and punctiliousness—matters which, as a former lady-doctor, she took very seriously.
“A vice admiral is here to see you, Terenty Sidorych. He’s brought you a notice.”
“Eh? A notice? Well, let ’im in.”
In walked a man of middling years, dressed in a shabby naval uniform, without epaulettes, braid or buttons.
“Sir, I’m a courier. I’ve brought you a notice.”
“Whaddaya mean, ‘a notice’?”
“Here it is, sir, you can read it. And would you sign for receipt, please.”
He held out a sheet of paper and the delivery book.
Terenty twirled the paper around, then lost his temper. “Whaddaya doin’, shovin’ it at me like that? Read it to me, don’t stick it in my face! You’re here now—so read it!”
The vice admiral looked uncomfortable, and, with a glance at the notice, he said, “It’s an order for you to give a lecture today at the university.”
“Whaddaya mean a ‘lekcher’?”
“It says ‘in the philology faculty’.”
“Phila-what?”
“Philology.”
“Philala, philala—why don’t you philala yourself!… And what do they want me for? I’m done with draying, I’m a man of leisure now. What? Can’t they find another drayman?”
“Evidently it’s your turn to occupy the chair, sir.”
“Hock me pie what?”
“The chair, sir.”
“I hain’t never hocked a pie in me life. Gimme the book, where do I sign?”
“Right here, sir.”
Terenty sucked the tip of the pencil and drew an ‘X’.
“That’ll do. I’m too busy now to write my whole fambly name.”
The vice admiral departed. Terenty got dressed and left the house.
His doorman had once been a singer at the Imperial Theatre. With the graceful magnificence of Verdi’s Don Carlos, he flung the doors open before Terenty.
The cabby was a good one, even if he was a former botany professor. Though that may have been why he talked with such enthusiasm about oats.
They even turned out to have acquaintances in common. The professor’s brother, a famous surgeon in his day, was Terenty’s junior doorman.
The conversation was so interesting that Terenty didn’t notice they had arrived.
Wanting to look smart, he had stopped on the way to buy a newspaper from a former lieutenant general. Fanning himself languidly, as though it were hot, he made his way up the stairs.
In one of the halls a lecture on the history of philosophy had just finished. The lecture had been given by Semyon Lazdryga, a former watchman. Evidently the students had enjoyed the lecture: they were enthusiastically throwing the lecturer up in the air.
“What do you want?” one of these students politely enquired.
“I’m s’posed to give a lekcher. On philala. They seem to think us draymen are thin on the ground, so they’ve asked me along.”
“All right then, give it to us.”
“Just don’t go on too long,” said another student. “It’s not our idea of fun, either.”
Terenty cleared his throat, stroked his beard, and began.
“Comrades in university! Here I was a drayman, and now I’m come a… come a… philala. Because you here need this higher ejucation. And them capitalists aren’t allowed at you. They’d teach you things you can’t even pernounce. They’d even make you use hypostrophies. Isn’t that right?”
“Right!” replied the students.
“We need to do away with all that stuff. Isn’t that right?”
“All right! Come on, guys, let’s toss him!”
And they spent a long time throwing him up in the air. They were even going to send a telegram to the Minister of Enlightenment, but it turned out none of them knew how to write. Then they remembered the Minister couldn’t read or write either, so they decided it was probably better not to bother him.
Instead of sending the telegram, they tossed Terenty a bit longer, then let him go.
On his return journey he overtook several carts loaded with firewood. Their drivers had the most improbable backgrounds: one had been a tenor with the Mariinsky Theatre, another an academician, the third a staff captain, the fourth a gynaecologist. Terenty watched them for a while, then turned and shook his head.
“Yes, a drayman’s work is harder than a philala’s.”
At home he had an unpleasant surprise. In the dining room his ten-year-old son was studiously learning the alphabet.
Terenty tore the book out of the boy’s hands and ripped it to shreds.
“You mangy pup!” he yelled. “So you thought you’d start readin’ books, eh? Learn the sciences, eh? So you wanna end up a goatherd?”
Angrily banging the door behind him, he went to his study to eat cabbage soup.
The little boy sobbed and sobbed as he gathered up the shredded pages. The lady-doctor cleared the dishes away, tiptoed up to the crying boy, and tentatively stroking his head, she whispered, “Don’t cry, my child. One day we shall see the heavens glittering like diamonds.”1
1918
Notes
1 The quotation “Don’t cry, my child. One day we shall see the heavens glittering like diamonds” comes from Chekhov’s play Uncle Vanya.
ONE OF US
THE THEATRE was half empty and very cold.
To warm themselves a little, or maybe just so they wouldn’t miss the tram, many people put on their fur coats during the interval and then wore them all through the last act.
Mrs Kudakina, the wife of a general, couldn’t bear these ways. They struck her as vulgar and uncouth.
She hadn’t been to the opera for a long time and now she felt like a fish out of water.
“Where’s Ardanova? Where’s the Princess? Where’s Levam-Tamurayeva? Nobody is here!”
Les nôtres—people like us—had disappeared. They had been replaced by les autres—people not at all like us—who had come in smocks, blacked boots and woollen jumpers. Perched on the bo
x ledges, they were laughing boisterously, crunching into apples, applauding in all the wrong places and making loud curtain calls for the wrong performers.
It was all just dreadful.
In the foyer where the general’s wife always went to powder her nose and see what the other ladies were wearing, les autres were loitering in a dense, drab crowd, stamping their boots and pressing up against one another like sardines.
Mrs Kudakina, the general’s wife, was very put out.
To make matters worse, she would have to walk home alone, down dark and frightening streets packed with highway robbers. No, this game certainly wasn’t worth the candle.
The nearer they got to the end of the performance, the more frightened she felt by the prospect of the dark street and the dark figures lurking in it.
Literally not one of les nôtres was present. She really would have to walk home alone.
The performance finished. She hurriedly put on her coat and rushed outside, doing up the buttons on the way. She just needed to stay with the crowd. That would be less frightening.
On the square right in front of the theatre were mounds of packed snow. In her hurry to get across the street, the general’s wife found herself standing on one such mound and didn’t know what to do. Her feet were slipping and there was nothing to hold on to.
“Good heavens! Am I going to have to get down on my hands and knees?”
“Madam, please allow me to assist you!” came a mild bass from behind her.
She turned round.
Before her stood an elderly gentleman of medium height, perhaps a civil servant from the old days. He was clean-shaven, with short, greying side whiskers and a respectful manner.
“One of les nôtres!” thought the general’s wife, holding out her hand to him with a certain grace. “Merci! How kind of you!”
“The snow is piled so high here that one could easily break a leg,” said the civil servant, supporting her by the arm. “Let’s cross to the other side where it’s less slippery.”
The general’s wife brightened. Obviously he was going in her direction. Thank heavens! Now there was nothing to be afraid of.
“Hmm!” said the civil servant with a disapproving shake of his head. “These new ways! Have you just attended the theatre, madam?”
“Yes, I was at the opera.”
“And who was singing this evening?”
She told him.
“But that’s dreadful!” replied the old gentleman indignantly. “Roles like those are beyond them. This wouldn’t have happened in the old days!”
“It seems you spend a lot of time at the theatre?”
“Nowadays I don’t set foot in it. Why would I? It’s too distressing. Have you realized what kind of people go there now?”
The general’s wife grew animated. “Indeed! Indeed!” she said. “It’s simply dreadful. Today there was literally not a single one of les nôtres.”
“Precisely! They just sit there blinking—they don’t understand anything at all. As for the ballet—I went once for old times’ sake. I wanted to see old friends. You know, I almost wept from rage. Makletsova was dancing—and there they all were yelling, ‘Bravo, Krasavina!’ Just because someone had made a mistake and put her name in the programme notes. Just imagine: they’ve got their eyes wide open, but they still can’t see who’s dancing. There was a performance of The Barber of Seville a while back, and at the end they called for the composer! How do you like that?”
“C’est affreux! C’est affreux!”1 said the general’s wife, truly upset.
“Remember the gala performances in the old days! The glitter, the gold, the crowds of generals! The fine ladies, all their diamonds and feathers! And their stoles! Sables! Furs so thick that your hand sank right into them. All perfumed and soft.”
“Oh!” said the general’s wife with a playful laugh. “I see you’re well versed in ladies’ attire?”
“Oh yes! And everything was so beautiful! Countess Westen, parterre box, left-hand side—what tiny feet she had! Always in white-satin slippers. And her tiny feet always had to be wrapped in tissue before she could put her boots on.”
“Zizi? You know Zizi?”
“She dressed beautifully. A patron, first class.”
“Tell me, did you ever visit the Westens at home?”
“I only saw them at the theatre.”
“Do you know her sister too?”
“Yes, I did once go to her house. She asked me to come round. I called in with a ticket for her.”
The general’s wife was happy. The walk wasn’t frightening at all; it was even rather enjoyable. What was most pleasing of all was that she’d immediately recognized her amiable companion as one of les nôtres. She was already imagining telling all this to her husband.
Boldly she grasped her companion’s arm and said, coquettishly, “Forgive me for being so sans façon,2 but it’s terribly slippery here!”
“It’s my pleasure, madam.”
“What a shame,” thought the general’s wife, “that I can’t really ask him who he is. It would seem rude. He might be a former minister. How very droll! What a romantic encounter! I wonder if there’s some way I can get him to say…”
“Yes, what trying times these are…” the civil servant said with a sigh, and fell silent.
“It must be terribly dull for you now that… now that everyone from the old regime is sitting at home without anything to do…”
“Well, yes, of course it’s dull for someone who’s used to working. But our time will come again. For now I’m living at my daughter’s. But our time will come! They’ll remember us yet! They certainly will! And they’ll want us back! They won’t get by for long without us. They’ll be begging us to come back!”
The general’s wife recalled a dignitary of her acquaintance, who, when speaking of his own hopes, had used these very same words. Literally, the very same words.
“You didn’t happen to know Ostryatinov, did you?” she asked.
“No, I never had occasion to meet him.”
“He used to say exactly the same thing. And my husband—I’ll be sure to introduce you—he would agree with you completely… Although these days he steers clear of politics altogether. It was terrible when his department was closed down—it really affected his nerves. I suppose you shun politics, too? Or have you still not lost hope? You can tell me everything, it’s all right. We belong to the same world. You know that as well as I do.”
“No, I stay out of politics. I leave politics to the boys.”
“Oh, the next entrance is mine,” said the general’s wife. Surely he would introduce himself before he went on his way?
“The Chagins’ house. I know it,” said the bureaucrat. “I know all the houses round here. I most certainly do! Twenty-six years I used to go down this road on my way to the theatre.”
“You really went as often as that?”
“Oh yes, nearly every day.”
“Goodness, you really are a man of the theatre!” the general’s wife said in astonishment. She guessed at once: he must have been having some kind of ballet liaison.
“Yes, madam! Twenty-six years—I’m not making it up.”
“But how can a man get as impassioned about the theatre as that? I think there must be some very special reason,” she said with a little giggle.
And she playfully wagged a gloved finger at him.
But he didn’t smile. He tipped his hat, wiped his large, bald head and, with a sigh, replied, “No, passion didn’t come into it. I was working. Madam, for twenty-six years I was an usher at that very theatre. Indeed I was!”
The general’s wife didn’t say a word to her husband about her instinctive ability to recognize les nôtres.
Feeling badly out of sorts, she went straight to bed, without even having some tea.
1918
Notes
1 C’est affreux: That’s terrible (French).
2 sans façon: familiar (French).
RA
SPUTIN
THERE ARE PEOPLE who are remarkable because of their talent, intelligence, or public standing, people whom you often meet and whom you know well. You have an accurate sense of what these people are like, but all the same they pass through your life in a blur, as if your psychic lens can never quite focus on them, and your memory of them always remains vague. There’s nothing you can say about them that everyone doesn’t already know. They were tall or they were short; they were married; they were affable or arrogant, unassuming or ambitious; they lived in some place or other and they saw a lot of so-and-so. The blurred negatives of the amateur photographer. You can look all you like, but you still can’t tell whether it’s a little girl or a ram…
The person I want to talk about flashed by in a mere two brief encounters. But how firmly and vividly his character is etched into my memory, as if with a fine blade.
And this isn’t simply because he was so very famous. In my life I’ve met many famous people, people who have truly earned their renown. Nor is it because he played such a tragic role in the fate of Russia. No. This man was unique, one of a kind, like a character out of a novel; he lived in legend, he died in legend, and his memory is cloaked in legend.
A semi-literate peasant and a counsellor to the Tsar, a hardened sinner and a man of prayer, a shape-shifter with the name of God on his lips.
They called him cunning. Was there really nothing to him but cunning?
I shall tell you about my two brief encounters with him.
1
The end of a Petersburg winter. Neurasthenia.
Rather than starting a new day, morning is merely a continuation of the grey, long-drawn-out evening of the day before.
Through the plate glass of the large bay window I can see out onto the street, where a warrant officer is teaching new recruits to poke bayonets into a scarecrow. The recruits have grey, damp-chilled faces. A despondent-looking woman with a sack stops and stares at them.
