And suddenly, having lived ten years in what was appeared to be a happy marriage, Lord Stockis had a stroke and died. All the concerns of the manor estate, which had been so distant for her, suddenly sat squarely upon the rounded shoulders of Lady Stocka. She toiled as best she could, but the servants mocked her, the peasants didn’t listen and the bailiff got drunk. The widow wrote a tearful letter to her aunt. The wise aunt responded quickly with her advice and Lady Jadvyga, as was her character, listened to it without hesitation and found herself a warden named Bucis-Bucinskas, who was a minor noble. The minor noble happened to be resourceful, cunning and knew how to speak well.
Soon the affairs of Brevikai Manor and of Bucis-Bucinskas improved. Lady Stocka could once again flip through magazines in the morning and walk through the park and garden reading her endless French novel. But she felt alone, sad and bored and she needed some sort of live, soft creature. She could not stand the smell of dogs, which reminded her of Lord Stockis; thus she took a servant, a seventeen-year-old orphan named Annika. She had the type of simple beauty that is possessed by the beautiful, inconspicuous flowers in the forest. She had timid blue eyes, and was gentle, supple and well kept. She glowed of youth and had the scent of that unique aroma of a blossom opening up early in the morning for the first time. Lady Jadvyga was amused by the girl’s naivety; her attentiveness soothed her ladyship’s false sense of pride.
After some time Lady Jadvyga, on this occasion not asking for the advice of her aunt, got another servant, a worker on the estate named Nicodemas. While Pan Stockis was alive Nicodemas would drive him around and he helped to look after the horses. He had been in Kaunas and often visited Raseiniai with Pan Stockis. He had a strong, handsome body, hair as black as a raven’s wings and a fiery, piercing glance. Everything somehow just happened when Lady Stocka was preparing to go to Siaudine while Nicodemas bridled the horse with the movements of a spoiled servant. She stood nearby and looked on, and Nicodemas, without an ounce of shame, brazenly ran his eye over the Lady’s curves and murmured nonchalantly: ‘In a minute, my Lady, in a minute’, and, as he had seen done before, helped her get into the light, two-wheeled buggy. A hot wave went through all of Lady Stocka’s body from the touch of his strong, rough hand. Upon sitting down she suddenly blushed, then she got angry at herself, then she got angry at Nicodemas – that scoundrel! – and she shouted in a shrill, studied tone: ‘Drive, you fool!’ That night Lady Stocka only fell asleep just before dawn. The June nightingales flapped incessantly on the shores of the Virvyte River, the silver moon gazed at the flattened mist, while Lady Stocka tossed and turned in bed, feeling the touch of Nicodemas’s strong fingers on her elbow.
Lady Stocka was ill for three days and a week later Nicodemas became her servant. He quickly understood what was expected of him, and this young and strong creature filled Lady Stocka’s monotonous night hours. Lady Stocka was rejuvenated; she was no longer plagued by headaches, she floated through the rooms with her hips swaying, and the sleepy manor estate echoed with her voice: ‘Nicodemas!’ Of course, Nicodemas became even more insolent. He didn’t do anything anymore. He shouted at the servants of the manor; he walked through the forest, accompanied by Lord Stockis’ beloved dog Mirta, wearing Lord Stockis’s hunting boots and with an English double-barrelled shotgun on his shoulder. Annika’s attentiveness was no longer soothing and her naivety began to grate. Lady Stocka shouted at her more and more often; the young girl suffered without complaint and was the same gentle and obedient girl. Her quiet humility infuriated Lady Stocka even more – she was helpless against that gentleness, quiet and hard as a diamond. She did not want to get rid of her but instead wanted to teach her a lesson. For what reason she did not know herself, and she did not think twice about it. She just simply wanted to and that was that.
Lady Stocka had heard about Lord Granovskis, who had a small estate somewhere at the edge of the Vilnius Governorate. Lord Granovskis, for whom money was no object, would buy young and refined female serfs. There were many anecdotes – funny, indecent and horrifying – that circulated concerning his passion. It would be wonderful to be able to sell him a servant girl! But she did not want to leave everything at the manor, leave Nicodemas, to do so. And how could she take him along? In any case, she would still need to stay with her very observant aunt in Vilnius, without raising suspicion and rumours while trying to get to know the Don Juan of Liucicai Manor. She had to think everything over carefully and wait for winter.
But again, for the third time in Lady Stocka’s life, everything unexpectedly worked itself out. Nicodemas always entered into the Lady’s quarters with ease, and one day upon entering into her rooms Lady Stocka heard the rustling of clothes, quick steps and the sound of a chair being overturned. She opened the door. Nicodemas held the blushing chambermaid in his arms. With her head tilted back she pounded both of her hands into Nicodemas’ chest and quickly whispered ‘I’ll tell her Ladyship, I’ll tell her Ladyship.’ Annika was the first to see Lady Jadvyga and she screamed, tore herself out of from Nicodemas’s embrace and ran away. Nicodemas, not missing a beat, twisted the aristocratic moustache that he had grown: ‘She was holding onto my neck, she wouldn’t let me go.’ Lady Stocka opened her mouth to rebuke him, but Nicodemas pressed his lips up against hers. ‘It’s daytime now, it’s daytime, someone will see us,’ she just managed to mumble but Nicodemas, as always, didn’t ask.
Hot, and with glazed, tired eyes, Lady Jadvyga fixed her hair in front of the mirror and suddenly remembered the flushed cheeks of the chambermaid – soft and radiant – and understood that she had stopped being seventeen a long time ago. She understood that Nicodemas would get what he desired and that he saw both of them clearly, and her hands started to shake. In the evening she requested that the estate blacksmith come to her and she ordered him to make four rings and fasten them to the floor.
‘Where?’ the blacksmith asked, smoothing out his hat in his hands.
‘Here, you mongrel!’ she shouted. ‘Here!’
‘When?’ the unperturbed Samogitian asked again.
‘Right away, you imbecile, right away!’
She was unable to sit still and went out into the park. It was already well past midday; the sunlight fell through the leaves and somewhere far from the flood-meadow of the Virvyte workers were raking hay and singing. The day cooled but its furious envy, glowing like an ember, did not. She returned to the manor; she wandered through the rooms, picking things up and setting them down again. She tried to play the piano but it was as though her surroundings had conspired against her. Each small thing – the vase on the table, the drapes through which flooded the heavy golden light of the evening sun – talked about her shame. She needed to do something, to be engaged in something.
She ordered that the estate’s floggers, Woodpile and Skinner, be brought to her.
‘Cut two armfuls of switches. Be sure they aren’t too thick.’
‘Yes, my most enlightened Lady, we know our work. Last year, after Pentecost…’ said Woodpile, his way of speaking involving cutting off the ends of his own words.
‘Soak them in brine tonight. Just make sure they are thin.’
‘Yes, your most enlightened Ladyship, we know of a place, there, where Griciukas…’ said Woodpile, once again cutting himself short.
She sent them away and calmed down. Tomorrow, tomorrow. I need to wait until tomorrow. The blacksmith came and fastened the rings to the floor and then evening came. Annika made the bed, and helped her lady undress.
‘It’s fine, Annika, it’s fine. Go, go to bed, get some rest.’ Lady Jadvyga’s voice was soft; it was only her eyes that glimmered. She thought that she would not be able to fall asleep and had ordered poppy milk to be brought up to her, but she fell asleep almost at once. In the morning she awoke fresh and happy; she ate with an appetite and ventured out to enjoy the refreshing morning air of the park and garden. She looked in on the dogs belonging to the late Lord Stockis, something she had never done before.
&
nbsp; ‘Don’t feed them today,’ she told Matthew, ‘I said, don’t feed them,’ she repeated angrily as she saw his mouth open wide in disbelief. She returned to her room. She checked the rings to see whether they were firmly secured, if they were good, and ordered that all of the carpets be removed and that the picture of the Virgin Mary of the Gates of Dawn be taken down. Then she ordered Annika be brought to her. Woodpile and Skinner were already waiting.
Lady Stocka sat in the armchair. The maiden turned pale at the sight of the floggers.
‘My Lady, my most enlightened Lady, my good and generous Lady,’ she whispered.
‘Tie her up!’
They lay the girl down on the floor and, putting her arms and legs through the rings, tied her up. Lady Stocka, grabbing Woodpile and Skinner by the sleeves, placed them opposite one another.
‘My most enlightened Lady, we…’ Woodpile began, but Lady Stocka pulled him so hard that he nearly fell down. The maiden lay there with her head turned uncomfortably to the side and tears poured silently from her bulging, bewildered eyes, rolling down her cheeks and lips, and quietly trickling onto the floor.
‘Flog her!’
Woodpile and Skinner took turns flogging her with the switches.
‘Not so quickly! Morons! Slowly, slowly, but firmly, firmly, now again. Yes, exactly, exactly!
The maiden’s body shuddered and she moaned softly. Lady Jadvyga watched in a hunched-over position with pursed lips. Bloodstains appeared on the linen blouse, the switches whistled, the shirt was in tatters, the girl’s groans subsided and now she only whimpered from time to time like a suffering beast. Lady Stocka wiped the blood that had splashed on her.
‘Stop!’ she exclaimed quietly. She rang the bell. A horrified servant girl from the manor appeared in the doorway. ‘Bring her something to drink. Bring wine!’ she yelled after her.
‘Drink, drink. Don’t be afraid, drink, my love, for strength.’
She looked hungrily at the girl’s dry lips, which were parched from pain. Afterwards she ordered them to pull the blouse up, exposing her back and neck. The room was filled with the salty smell of blood. Skinner and Woodpile waved their switches half-heartedly. The girl didn’t moan anymore and stopped shuddering.
Without being instructed to, Skinner and Woodpile lowered their arms. Lady Stocka looked at the bloody, unrecognisable corpse. The late June sun had already set. The dew fell on the park and in the garden and a mist rose from the flood-meadows.
‘Take her away…’ Lady Stocka ordered in a tired voice.
Woodpile and Skinner brought a linen sheet, wrapped the girl in it, and then went outside through the park, turning in the direction of the dog kennel. The kennel was further away from the other buildings of the estate, at the very end of the park. The dogs, who hadn‘t been fed all day, howled and whined. Matthew came out and stared first at Woodpile and then Skinner.
‘Her Ladyship ordered us to, her Ladyship said…’ Woodpile started.
‘Put it on the ground,’ Matthew said. ‘I said, put it down and go. Go.’
‘Her Ladyship ordered us to…’ Woodpile began once again.
‘I said go. Go, man.’
Woodpile looked at Skinner, but he looked past him and was silent. Woodpile, not saying a word, trudged up to the estate through the park, with Skinner following behind. Matthew looked around and called to a page named Francis. Having seen the horrified face of the boy, he admonished him: ‘What are you afraid of? There’s a person in there.’
Annika was buried under the old wild pear tree on the shores of the Virvyte River. Lady Jadvyga Stocka, née Saudargaite, poisoned herself in the jail of Kaunas Fortress. The next summer, a year after Annika’s death, Brevikiai Manor caught fire. Bucys-Bucinskas ran around tearing his hair out, as if it was his property that was burning. The peasants who had been herded out of the buildings watched the blazing estate quietly and indifferently. The fire, which was being poorly controlled, spread to the barns, granary and stable. Everything burned to the ground. The heirs to the estate didn’t rebuild it. As the years passed the park became overgrown with bushes and the garden grew wild. It was only from the terraces on the slopes of the Virvyte River that you could tell that someone had once lived there.
Translated by Jayde Will from Antanas Ramonas, Lapkricio saule, Vilnius: Vaga (1989).
Antanas Ramonas (1947–1993) was one of the most subtle and lyrical prose writers in Lithuania in the 1980s and 1990s. His work includes essay-style short stories and elegiac urban prose that uses historical themes. His short-story collections North Wind (Siaures vejas, 1984) and November Sun (Lapkricio saule, 1989), and the short novel The White Clouds of Last Summer (Balti praejusios vasaros debesys, 1991), tell the stories of artistic spirits who pay no mind to the ideological and career advancement concerns that were prevalent in the Soviet Union. By depicting the aimless lives of these characters the author evokes a cultural shift in the late Soviet period, one that is most clearly expressed through the rise of the individual who displayed a conscious effort to reject the stifling pressures of Soviet ideology, which had penetrated into all aspects of everyday life.
Handless
Ricardas Gavelis
For Grazina B.
Winter in that land lasted eight months. Four were left for the other seasons. But the river never froze completely. As if alive, its current had to breathe air and be able to see the world. It surrendered to no frost; it was invincible, as if it were the current of the lives of all the people who had been relocated to its banks. Tens, hundreds, thousands could perish. But there was no power that could destroy every single one of them.
A solitary raft of rough logs floated down the river. It made its way forward slowly, as if it were dead tired. Driven by the cold, wild animals stopped on the riverbank and followed it with fearful glances. But the raft did not care about them, it was looking for people. And still there were no people.
The raft was bare. Only by looking extremely carefully could you make out something pale and crooked on the middle log – perhaps a small frozen animal, a sign, or maybe just an unclear mirage, the reflection of the boundless snows.
***
The desire came on suddenly. It took over not only his soul but also his entire body like a disease that had secretly lurked inside for a long time and awaited its hour of triumph. Vytautas Handless thought about why it had happened just now. Perhaps his retirement was to blame, endless spare time and a sweet kind of vacuum that had enveloped his life in a few weeks. Both his daughters concerned themselves with the separate apartments they had longed for, and when he went to linger by Ona’s grave he could find nothing to say to her. He could not explain anything or describe the unquenchable desire that was oppressing him. Smoking by her grave, which was encircled by a chain, he awaited some sign – a ghostlike reply from Ona. But no sign came. The dead tend to be silent; they don’t speak even in dreams.
For eight years now he had been writing her a letter every week and reading it out loud every Saturday in the empty living room. He wrote about everything: the scent of the lilacs, the neighbour’s hook nose, the contours of the clouds, the St. Bernard that he had wanted all his life but had never had except in his imagination. He would tell Ona everything, though sometimes it occurred to him that he would write to her a good deal more in these letters than he would have admitted to her had she been alive. He would confess to her his sadness and frailty; had she been alive, he would never have revealed such things. Without any shyness he would tell her all his quirks and little peculiarities: that all his life he’d been desperately afraid of fish; that he read relatives’ letters only in the bathroom; that he swore by all that was holy that his childhood friend Martin’s soul had been reincarnated in the neighbour’s cat. He didn’t even hide the fact that he had been unfaithful to her twice. He almost came to believe that he could tell her absolutely everything in the letters.
But he never forgot that it wasn’t really so. He couldn’t find it in himself to writ
e about what was perhaps the most important thing – that lost period of four years. He never spoke of it to her or to anyone else – not even when every year Alexis came on the fifth of March and the two of them would light a candle by the portraits drawn from memory. Even then he didn’t speak of it. Alexis, who worked at the theatre, would complain that it had been simpler at the old theatre, but who the hell could understand the caprices of current fashion. Vytautas Handless spoke of the shortage of parts, the outdated machinery and the hysterical director of the artel1*. One might say that they communicated in code, thinking and wanting to say something entirely different. They never spoke about the most important thing, the reason why they actually got together here; they never spoke, otherwise they would have been forced to remember that only the two of them had survived out of the entire twenty-six.
The Dedalus Book of Lithuianian Literature Page 12
