The thought of certain death now occurred to him ever more frequently, but, just as before, he would reject the idea of suicide with some vexation. It seemed to him that he had neither the will nor the desire to kill himself, and that not a single animal had ever perished by its own hand.
Was this due to the weakness of Ivan Ivanovich’s will, or some vague hope? Impossible to say. At any rate, one day, quite suddenly, Ivan Ivanovich came up with a plan by which he would perish without resorting to self-inflicted violence.
It happened early in the morning. The autumn sun was still below the trees when Ivan Ivanovich awoke with a start in his dugout. It was dreadfully damp. Shivers and chills ran through his whole body. He woke up, opened his eyes, and, all at once, had a perfectly lucid thought about his death. It seemed to him that he had to die that very day. He didn’t know how or why—and he began to think. Suddenly it came to him: he would die like an animal, in some desperate struggle.
Scenes of this struggle began to take shape in his imagination. He saw himself locked in combat with another man, perhaps even Yegor Konstantinovich, for whom his wife had left him. They were biting each other, rolling in the dirt, pressing each other down, tearing at each other’s hair…
Ivan Ivanovich was now wide awake. Trembling all over, he sat on the ground. He contemplated the plan carefully, thought by thought, trying not to miss a single detail.
Here he was, entering the room. He opens the door. Yarkin is sure to be sitting at the table to the right. Nina Osipovna would be sitting at the window, her hands folded on her stomach. Ivan Ivanovich would walk over to Yarkin and shove him, one hand hitting the shoulder, the other his chest. Yarkin would fall backward, banging his head against the wall. Then he would jump up, draw his revolver, and shoot his opponent—Ivan Ivanovich Belokopytov.
Once the plan was complete, Ivan Ivanovich leapt to his feet, but, hitting his head on the ceiling, got back down and crawled out of the dugout.
He set out for town at a calm, steady pace, methodically contemplating the details of his plan. But then, wanting to get it over with quickly, in one fell swoop, he took off running, kicking up dirt, leaves, and splashes of mud.
He ran for a long time—almost all the way home. It was only when the house was in sight that he slowed down, proceeding very quietly.
A little white mutt barked at him indifferently.
Ivan Ivanovich bent over, picked up a stone, and launched it with great precision.
The dog squealed and scurried behind a gate, then stuck out its snout and barked fiercely, baring its teeth.
Ivan Ivanovich grabbed a lump of dirt and aimed it at the dog. Then he launched another lump. And then he approached the gate and began to tease the animal with his foot, hopping up and down and trying to kick it in the teeth.
Some kind of rabid fury and fright took hold of the dog. It whined in mortal fear, raising its upper lip and trying to seize the human foot. But, again and again, Ivan Ivanovich managed to pull the foot away deftly, in the nick of time, smacking the animal with his hand or with yet another lump of dirt.
Aunt Pepelyukha ran out of the house as if scalded by boiling water, selecting the most terrible, violent expressions for the foul urchins teasing her dog. But when she saw the large, shaggy man, she gasped. At first she managed to say that a mature citizen ought to be ashamed of himself, teasing dogs like that. But then she again fell silent and stood motionless, her mouth agape, staring at the extraordinary scene before her.
Ivan Ivanovich, now on his knees, was waging battle against the little mutt, trying to tear its jaws asunder with his hands. The dog wheezed frantically, its paws scraping the ground.
Aunt Pepelyukha let out a strange, piercing shriek, ran up to Ivan Ivanovich, barely managed to snatch the dog from his hands, and hurried back into the house.
Ivan Ivanovich wiped his hands, which were bitten all over, and walked on, stepping slowly and heavily.
In describing this incident, the author falls prey to rather strange, unusual feelings. In fact, he is slightly upset by Ivan Ivanovich’s act. Needless to say, the author hasn’t the least bit of sympathy for the Pepelyukha mutt, may it go to the dogs—but he is upset by the uncertainty and absurdity of Ivan Ivanovich’s act. He doesn’t know for a fact whether, at that moment, Ivan Ivanovich had actually gone off his rocker—or whether he hadn’t gone off his rocker. Was the whole thing only a game, an accidental occurrence, an extreme case of nerves? Anyhow, this is all terribly unclear and psychologically incomprehensible.
And mind you, dear readers—this lack of clarity concerns a personage intimately familiar and well known to the author! Now, imagine if the author had gotten mixed up with an unfamiliar character? Why, he’d start fudging it, he’d lie his head off!
Even the famed English author Jack London—he’d lie his head off too. The rumors about this incident were just too damned contradictory.3
Aunt Pepelyukha, for instance, swore up and down that Ivan Ivanovich was stark raving mad, drooling, his tongue hanging out of his mouth. Katerina Vasilyevna, no less devout a lady, was, broadly speaking, in agreement. Yet the station guard and Hero of Labor Yeremeyich held the opposite view. He insisted that Ivan Ivanovich Belokopytov was fit as a bull, and that the real sickos and loonies are usually put in special homes. Yegor Konstantinovich Yarkin, too, had every confidence that Belokopytov was in full possession of his faculties. As for respected Comrade Sitnikov, well, he wasn’t about to weigh in on the matter, saying that, in case of dire need, he could contact a certain psychiatrist in Moscow. But that would drag out indefinitely and, anyway, was far from a sure thing. By the time Comrade Sitnikov got around to writing, and by the time the Moscow psychiatrist got around to replying—no doubt after a few stiff ones…And even though he’s a Moscow psychiatrist, he might dish out such a load of nonsense…If you go and print it, just try and prove you had nothing to do with it. The author had better leave the whole business to the reader’s own conscience and simply move on.
11
Ivan Ivanovich wiped his hands on his suit and proceeded to the house. Blood dripped slowly from his dog-bitten fingers, but Ivan Ivanovich, noticing nothing and feeling no pain, kept going.
He paused for a moment at the gate, cast a backward glance, then slipped into the yard. He dashed up the steps, opened the door, and quietly entered the mudroom.
A strange quiver ran through his body. His heart was pounding and his breathing was ragged.
He stood in the mudroom awhile, then went into the corridor, unobserved. Crossing the creaking floorboards, he approached Yarkin’s room and stopped, listening close.
As usual, everything was quiet.
Ivan Ivanovich suddenly pushed at the door, flinging it wide open, and stepped over the threshold.
The scene was exactly as Ivan Ivanovich had imagined it. Yarkin sat at the table to the right. Nina Osipovna, her hands folded on her stomach, sat in an armchair to the left, near the window. There were glasses on the table, some bread. And a kettle was boiling on the hissing kerosene stove.
Ivan Ivanovich somehow took all this in at a single glance, and, continuing to stand still, gazed at his wife.
She gasped quietly when she saw him and sat up in her chair. But Yegor Konstantinovich waved his hands at her, begging her to stay calm for the sake of their child. Then, after rising to approach his guest, he stopped and sat down again, gesturing for Ivan Ivanovich to enter the room and close the door, so as not to lower the temperature in vain.
And Ivan Ivanovich entered. Slightly lowering his head and raising his shoulders, he walked up to the seated Yegor Konstantinovich and stopped two paces away from him. A deadly pallor suddenly spread across Yegor Konstantinovich’s face. He sat in his chair, leaning back a bit, and moved his lips without budging.
For a few seconds, Ivan Ivanovich stood silent. Then, after quickly glancing at Yarkin—at the very spot he was supposed to strike—he suddenly smiled, stepped aside, and sat down on one of the chairs.
<
br /> Yegor Konstantinovich now sat up straight and leveled his vexed, angry gaze on Belokopytov. Ivan Ivanovich, for his part, sat with his hands hanging limp, staring invisibly at some point in space. He was reflecting on the fact that he harbored neither anger nor hatred against this man. He could not and did not want to approach Yegor Konstantinovich and strike him. And so he sat there, feeling tired and ill. He didn’t want anything. The only thing he wanted was a bit of hot tea.
Thinking these thoughts, he looked at the kerosene stove, at the kettle on the stove, and at the sliced bread. The lid on the kettle rattled, lifted by billowing steam, and water came boiling over, hissing on the kerosene stove.
Yegor Konstantinovich rose and put out the fire.
And then the room grew completely silent.
Seeing that Ivan Ivanovich was gazing fixedly at the kerosene stove, Nina Osipovna sat up in her chair once more and, dolefully pursing her lips, began to insist in a plaintive tone that she had no intention of keeping the stove for herself—she had only borrowed it, knowing that Ivan Ivanovich had no use for the thing.
But Yegor Konstantinovich waved his hands and begged her not to worry. In a calm, even voice, he told Ivan Ivanovich that he would never take the thing for free—that he would pay him the very next day, in full, at the market price.
“I would pay you today,” Yegor Konstantinovich said, “but I haven’t got the change. Be sure to stop by tomorrow morning.”
“All right,” Ivan Ivanovich replied curtly. “I’ll stop by.”
Then, all of a sudden, Ivan Ivanovich grew anxious, shifting in his seat, and turned to his wife, saying that he was terribly sorry for sitting there like that, covered in dirt, but he was just so tired.
She nodded, looking nervous and dolefully pursing her lips. Sitting up in her chair once again, she said:
“Vanya, don’t be angry…”
“I’m not angry,” Ivan Ivanovich answered plainly.
He rose to his feet and moved one step closer to his wife, then bowed and left the room without saying a word, quietly closing the door behind him.
He went out into the corridor, stood there a moment, and then started for the front door.
Katerina Vasilyevna was waiting for him in the kitchen. Afraid, for some reason, to utter a word, she beckoned him over with gestures, inviting him to have a seat and eat some soup. Ivan Ivanovich—also, for some reason, not saying a word—shook his head, smiled, patted the landlady on her hand, and left the house.
Katerina Vasilyevna ran out after him with a cry, but Ivan Ivanovich turned and waved his hand, indicating that he didn’t wish to be followed, and disappeared through the gate.
12
Ivan Ivanovich didn’t return for the stove money. He vanished from town.
Yegor Konstantinovich Yarkin ran through the streets in search of Ivan Ivanovich, stopping at every establishment, money in hand. He kept insisting that he had nothing to do with it, that the money was for the stove—here it was, the money—that he had no desire to use someone else’s goods, and that, if he didn’t find Ivan Ivanovich, he would donate the money to an orphanage.
Yegor Konstantinovich even made it as far as the clearing, past the “Dog’s Grove,” but he never found Ivan Ivanovich.
Like a beast embarrassed to leave its dead body in plain view, Ivan Ivanovich vanished from town.
Comrade Peter Pavlovich Sitnikov and the station guard, Hero of Labor Yeremeyich, unanimously asserted that they had seen Ivan Ivanovich Belokopytov jump onto a departing train. But why had he jumped? Where had he gone? No one knew. He was never heard from again.
13
It was a lovely spring.
The snow had already melted away, and the birds were welcoming their new year. On one such day, Nina Osipovna Arbuzova brought forth her gift to the world, a beautiful boy of eight and a half pounds.
Yegor Konstantinovich was remarkably happy and satisfied.
The stove money—twelve gold rubles—did indeed go to the orphanage.
April 1924
A TERRIBLE NIGHT
1
You write and you write, but what’re you writing for? Nobody knows.
I can just see the reader grinning. What about the money, I hear him say. Eh, you son of a gun? They pay you money, don’t they? These writers sure do run to fat…
Oh, dear reader! What is money? So they pay you some money—so you go and buy some firewood, get your wife a pair of boots. And that’s all. Money won’t bring you peace of mind, won’t give you any universal idea.
And yet, if you took away that measly, sordid little payment, the author would chuck literature altogether. He’d quit writing and snap his quill pen to bloody smithereens, devil take it.
I mean it.
The reader these days, he’s a rotten sort. He goes crazy for French and American romance novels, but contemporary Russian literature? Wouldn’t be caught dead with it. Today’s reader, he wants sudden flights of fantasy—he wants some kind of plot, god only knows what kind.
But where’s an author supposed to get all that stuff?
How can his fantasy suddenly soar when Russian reality won’t comply?
And as for the revolution—well, that too is a tough spot. You’ve got your suddenness, alright. And you’ve got your majestic, grandiose fantasy. But just you try and write about it. They’ll say you’ve bungled it. All wrong, they’ll say. No scientificness of approach. And your ideology isn’t so hot, either.
But where’s the author supposed to get that approach? Where, I ask you, is the author supposed to get that scientific approach and ideology, if he was born in a petit bourgeois family and still can’t suppress his sordid, philistine interest in money, flowers, curtains, and soft chairs?
Oh, dear reader! What a terribly uninteresting life we Russian writers lead.
A foreigner can write anything he wants—and it’s water off a duck’s back. He can write about the moon, let loose with sudden fantasy, talk all kinds of nonsense about wild beasts, or even send his hero to the moon in some kind of cannon ball…
Nothing will come of it.
But you just try and get away with that here. Try, for example, to send our technician Boris Petrovich Kuritsyn to the moon. They’ll laugh at you. They’ll take offense. Now you’ve gone and done it, they’ll say, you dirty dog! What a load of bunk! Impossible!
So you write in complete awareness of your own backwardness.
As for glory, what glory? If you think about glory—again, what glory? Nobody knows what our descendants will make of our works, or what phase the earth will be in, geologically speaking.
In fact, the author recently read this one German philosopher who says that our whole life, the whole flowering of our culture, is nothing but an interglacial period.1
The author freely admits that a shiver ran through his body when he read that.
Really. Just imagine, dear reader…Abandon your daily concerns for a single moment and picture the following: there was, long before us, some kind of life and some kind of high culture, and then it vanished. Now you have a flowering again—but it too will vanish. Now, this might not affect us personally, but still…The melancholy sense of something fleeting, temporary, random, and constantly changing—it forces one to reconsider, time and again, one’s own life.
Say you write a manuscript, breaking your head over the orthography, let alone the style. Then, in five hundred years’ time, some mammoth comes along and stomps on it with his huge foot, riffles it with his tusk, gives it a sniff, and discards it as inedible rubbish.
There’s no consolation in anything. Not in money, not in glory, not in honors. And on top of that, life is kind of funny—really rather poor.
You go out into the country, for example, out of town…You see a little house, a fence. Boring sight. There’s a little cow standing out front, bored to tears…Manure on the side of her belly…She’s shaking her tail…Chewing…You see a peasant woman sitting there, wearing some kind of gray kerchie
f. She’s doing something with her hands. A rooster’s walking back and forth. And everything, all around you, is poor, dirty, uncivilized…
Oh, what a boring sight!
And say an old peasant comes up to the woman. His hair’s light brown. He’s like a walking plant. He comes up and looks at her with his bright little eyes—like shiny marbles—wondering, what’s the old woman doing? He hiccups, scratches one leg against the other, yawns. “Eh,” he says, “I’m bored. Suppose I’ll go and catch me some sleep. Not much else to do…” And off he goes.
And you want a sudden flight of fantasy!
Ah, gentlemen, gentle comrades! Where am I supposed to get a flight of fantasy? And how do I adapt fantasy to this countryside reality? Be so kind as to tell me—do me a favor! Really, I’d be happy to blow things out of proportion, so to speak—but I can’t start from scratch.
And in town, where the lamps shine bright, where citizens walk back and forth in complete awareness of their human greatness—well, there too you won’t always get the suddenness of fantasy.
So they walk back and forth, these citizens.
But if you follow one of them, reader—exert some effort and follow him—you’d be surprised at the nonsense he’s up to.
Turns out he’s off to borrow three rubles, or to meet with some woman or other. I mean, really!
He shows up, sits down in front of his lady, says something about love—or maybe he doesn’t even say anything, just plants his hand on the lady’s knee and looks into her eyes.
Or maybe he pays some other fellow a visit. He gulps down a cup of tea, takes a peek at himself in the samovar—thinks to himself, “Helluva mug,” grins, spills some jam on the tablecloth, and leaves. That’s right—just claps his hat onto the side of his head and leaves.
Sentimental Tales Page 8
