Sentimental Tales

by Mikhail Zoshchenko

  And Bylinkin—this slightly cynical man who had been hard-boiled by life and deafened by artillery, who had, on several occasions, come face to face with death—this terrible Bylinkin even developed a bit of a poetry habit, writing about a dozen verses of every kind and one ballad.

  The author isn’t familiar with his little rhymes, but one poem, entitled “To Her and This One,” which had been submitted to The Dictatorship of Labor and rejected on the grounds of inconsonance with the socialist era, has accidentally—and by courtesy of the paper’s technical secretary, Ivan Abramovich Krantz—fallen into the author’s hands.

  The author holds a dissenting opinion regarding verses and amateur poetry, and, hence, chooses not to trouble readers and typesetters by reproducing the longish poem in full. He will only draw the typesetters’ attention to the final two stanzas, which are more sonorous than the rest:

  I had referred to love as progress—

  Such was the motto of my heart.

  And I had eyes for nothing but

  The image that your face imparts.

  O Lizochka, yes, I have been

  Reduced to ash within the fire

  Of an acquaintance of this kind.

  In terms of the formal method, these verses aren’t so bad, I suppose. But, in general terms, they’re pretty lousy stuff. They really are inconsonant and arrhythmic with our era.

  Bylinkin didn’t pursue poetry further, abandoning the poet’s thorny path. Having always been somewhat prone to Americanism, he soon flung aside his literary achievements, buried his talent without regret, and went on with his former life, never again projecting his mad ideas onto paper.7

  Bylinkin and Lizochka would now meet in the evenings, leave the house, and wander the deserted streets and boulevards late into the night. Sometimes they would go down to the river and sit on the sandy bluff, gazing at the swift waters of the river Kozyavka with deep and silent joy. At times they would hold each other’s hands and gasp quietly, admiring the extraordinary beauty of nature or a light fluffy cloud racing across the sky.

  All this was new to them, charming—and, most importantly, they felt they were seeing it all for the very first time.

  Sometimes the lovers would walk past the town limits and go into the woods. There, holding each other’s fingers, they would stroll all gentlelike. Stopping before some pine or fir tree, they would gaze upon it in astonishment, sincerely amazed by the bold and whimsical game of nature, which had flung up from beneath the ground a tree that was so necessary to mankind.

  And then Vasily Bylinkin, shaken by the uniqueness of existence on earth and by its astonishing laws, would, out of an excess of emotions, fall to his knees before the young lady and kiss the soil around her feet.

  And all about them—the moon, the mystery of the night, grass, fireflies chirping, the silence of the woods, the frogs and the bugs. All about them there was this sort of sweetness and serenity in the air. It’s the joy of simple existence—a joy the author still refuses to reject wholeheartedly, which is why he cannot, under any circumstances, admit to being a superfluous figure against the background of the ascendant way of life.

  And so, Bylinkin and Lizochka loved these walks past the town limits most of all.

  But on one of these lovely walks, probably on a particularly damp night, the careless Bylinkin caught cold and fell ill. He came down with something on the order of mumps—or, as the doctors call it, epidemic parotitis.

  By evening Bylinkin felt a slight chill and a stabbing pain in the throat. By night his mug was swollen something awful.

  Lizochka would enter his room in soft slippers, weeping quietly, her hair down, and rush back and forth from bed to table, not knowing what to undertake, what to do, or how to ease the sick man’s lot.

  Ma Rundukova would also waddle into the room several times a day, asking the sick man whether he wanted cranberry jelly, which was, according to her, indispensable in fighting off any and all infectious diseases.

  Two days later, when Bylinkin’s mug swelled beyond recognition, Lizochka ran out to fetch a doctor.

  After examining the sick man and prescribing some medicinal substances, the doctor left, likely cursing in his heart at having been summoned for such a trifle.

  Lizochka Rundukova ran out after him. She stopped him in the street and, wringing her hands, began to babble, pleading: Well, how does it look? What’s the verdict? Is there any hope? The doctor had got to know, she said, that she simply wouldn’t survive this man’s death.

  At that point the doctor, who had grown accustomed to such scenes in his line of work, declared indifferently that mumps is mumps and, unfortunately, one needn’t die of it.

  Somewhat vexed by this insignificant danger, Lizochka glumly wended her way home and began to care for the sick man selflessly, sparing neither her meager strength nor her health—not even fearing to catch the mumps by way of infection.

  In those first few days, Bylinkin was afraid to raise his head from the pillow. Probing his swollen throat with his fingers, he would ask in horror whether Lizochka Rundukova could still love him after this illness, which had enabled her to see him in such an ugly and disgusting state.

  But the young lady begged him not to worry, saying that, in her opinion, he looked more dignified than ever before.

  And Bylinkin would laugh, quietly and gratefully, saying that this illness sure had tested the fortitude of their love.

  5

  It was indeed an extraordinary love. And after Bylinkin’s head and neck regained their former shape and he rose from his sick bed, he came to believe that Lizochka Rundukova had saved him from certain death.

  This lent their amorous relations a degree of solemnity and even generosity.

  One day, very soon after his illness, Bylinkin took Lizochka’s hand and, adopting the tone of someone who had made a decision, begged her to hear him out without asking superfluous questions or interjecting with her silly remarks.

  Bylinkin gave a long and solemn speech, declaring that he knew all about life and how hard it was to exist on earth, and that, in former days, when he was still a fledgling youngster, he had treated life with criminal nonchalance, for which he had paid dearly in his time, but that now experience had taught him how to live, had taught him the harsh and rigid laws of life. And finally he declared that now, after much deliberation, he had decided to introduce a change into the projected course of his life.

  In short, Bylinkin made a formal proposal to Lizochka Rundukova, requesting that she not fret about her future well-being, even if she were henceforth unemployed and, therefore, unable to make a strong contribution to their modest communal pot.

  Putting on a few airs and speaking briefly of free love—to accentuate the delicacy of the situation—Lizochka nevertheless enthusiastically accepted the proposal, saying that she had been waiting a long time, and that if Bylinkin hadn’t popped the question, he’d be a complete louse and swindler. As for open relationships, well, they’re well and good in their time, but this was a whole other kettle of fish.

  Eager to share her joyous news, Lizochka Rundukova immediately ran to her mother, as well as to her neighbors, inviting them all to the wedding—a modest and intimate affair that would take place in the very near future.

  The neighbors congratulated her warmly, saying that she had languished long enough as an old maid, tortured by the hopelessness of her existence.

  Ma Rundukova shed a few tears, of course, and went to Bylinkin to ascertain the authenticity of the fact herself.

  Bylinkin confirmed the old woman, solemnly asking for permission to refer to her, from that day forward, as “Ma.” The old woman, crying and blowing her nose in her apron, said that she had lived on this planet for fifty-three years, but that this day was the happiest day of her life. She, in her turn, asked for permission to call Bylinkin “Vasya.” Bylinkin graciously consented.

  As regards Mishka Rundukov, well, Mishka took a rather indifferent attitude to the change in his sister�
�s life, and was, at the present time, running around in the streets like a lunatic and sticking out his tongue.

  Now the lovers no longer strolled past the town limits. For the most part, they sat at home and talked late into the night, planning out their future life.

  And during one of these conversations Bylinkin, with pencil in hand, began to draft on paper a plan of their future rooms, which were to constitute a separate, small, but cozy apartment.

  They argued with each other breathlessly as to where to put the bed, and where to put the table, and where to place the dressing table.

  Bylinkin urged Lizochka not to be foolish enough to place the dressing table in the corner.

  “How utterly provincial!” Bylinkin declared. “Placing a dressing table in the corner…Every young lady goes and does it that way. It’s much better and more monumental to place a chest of drawers in the corner, and to cover it with a light lace tablecloth, which Ma, I hope, will not refuse us.”

  “A chest of drawers in the corner is just as provincial,” Lizochka replied, almost in tears. “Besides, it’s Ma’s chest of drawers—who knows whether she’ll give it to us.”

  “Nonsense,” Bylinkin said. “How could she not give it to us? We can’t keep our underthings on the windowsills, can we? Sheer nonsense.”

  “You should talk to Ma yourself, Vasya,” Lizochka said sternly. “Talk to her as if she were your own ma. Tell her, ‘Ma, dearest, give us that chest of drawers.’”

  “Nonsense,” Bylinkin said. “You know, if you’d like, I could go see the old woman this very minute.”

  And Bylinkin marched off to the old woman’s room. It was already quite late. The old woman was asleep. Bylinkin shook her for a long time, but she kept wriggling and kicking, refusing to wake up and understand what was happening.

  “Wake up, Ma,” Bylinkin said sternly. “Listen, can’t Lizochka and I count on the least bit of comfort? Do you expect our underthings to just flutter on the windowsills?”

  Once the old woman understood, with great difficulty, what was being asked of her, she began to explain that the chest of drawers had stood in its place for fifty-one years, and that she had no intention of dragging it in all directions, tossing it to the left and to the right, in the fifty-second year of its existence. And it’s not like she could make a chest of drawers with her own hands. It was too late, at her age, to learn the craft of carpentry. High time, she said, that Bylinkin understood this and stopped offending an old woman.

  Bylinkin commenced shaming Ma, saying that he, who had twice been shelled by heavy artillery on all fronts, had the right to expect a peaceful life.

  “Shame on you, Ma!” Bylinkin said. “Begrudging us a chest of drawers! Well, you can’t take it with you to the grave. I hope you know that.”

  “You can’t have the chest of drawers!” the old woman said screechily. “You’ll get my furniture when I up and die.”

  “Right, when you up and die!” Bylinkin said indignantly. “That’ll be the day…”

  Seeing that things had taken a serious turn, the old woman began to weep and wail, saying that the last word belonged to her innocent babe, Mishka Rundukov, since Mishka was the only male representative of the Rundukov clan, and so the chest of drawers, by all rights, belonged to him, not to Lizochka.

  Roused from his slumber, Mishka Rundukov was decidedly against giving up the chest of drawers.

  “Nothin’ doing,” said Mishka. “They want our chest of drawers but won’t shell out more’n ten kopecks. Chests of drawers cost money.”

  At that point Bylinkin slammed the door shut and stormed off to his room. Bitterly reproaching Lizochka, he told her that he couldn’t do without the chest of drawers—that, as a man seasoned in battle, he knew all about life and refused to abandon his ideals.

  Lizochka literally darted back and forth between her mother and Bylinkin, begging them to come to some sort of terms, and offering to drag the chest of drawers from one room to another at regular intervals.

  Then Bylinkin asked Lizochka to stop darting about, proposing that she go to bed immediately and gather her strength so as to tackle this fateful question in the morning.

  Morning was no better. Many bitter and hurtful truths were uttered on all sides.

  The angry old woman said with desperate determination that she now saw him, Vasily Vasilyevich Bylinkin, for what he really was—that today he’d take her chest of drawers, and tomorrow he’d make jelly out of her and eat it up with bread. That’s the sort of man he was!

  Bylinkin shouted that he would file a petition with the police to have the old woman arrested for spreading false and defamatory rumors.

  Lizochka, shrieking quietly, dashed from one to the other, begging them to stop hollering, for heaven’s sake, and try and sort the matter out calmly.

  The old woman said that she was far past the age of hollering, and that she would tell all and sundry, without any sort of hollering, that Bylinkin had dined with them three times and had never bothered, for the sake of courtesy, to offer a bit of compensation for even one of those meals.

  Bylinkin grew terribly agitated and declared acidly that, on his many walks with Lizochka, he had bought her no end of lollipops and marshmallows, as well as two bouquets of flowers, but you didn’t see him presenting any bills to Ma.

  To which Lizochka replied, biting her lip, that he should cut out the brazen lies—there hadn’t been any marshmallows, just a few fruit drops and a small bunch of violets, which wasn’t worth a kopeck and, moreover, had faded the very next day.

  Lizochka walked out of the room in tears, leaving everything to fate.

  Bylinkin wanted to hurry after her and apologize for his inaccurate testimony, but then he locked horns with the old woman again, called her the devil’s own ma, spit at her, and ran out of the house.

  Bylinkin disappeared for two days—no one knows where. When he returned, he stated in an official tone that he no longer considered it possible to stay with the Rundukovs.

  Two days later Bylinkin moved to another apartment, at the Ovchinnikovs’. Lizochka defiantly sat those two days out in her room.

  The author doesn’t know the details of the move, nor does he know what bitter moments Lizochka endured. He doesn’t even know whether she endured them. Had Bylinkin felt any hint of regret, or had he done all this with full awareness and determination?

  The author knows only that long after the move—indeed, long after his marriage to Marusya Ovchinnikova—Bylinkin kept calling on Lizochka Rundukova. The two of them would sit side by side, shaken by their misfortune, and exchange insignificant words. From time to time, recalling this or that happy episode or event from the past, they would discuss it with sad and pitiful smiles, holding back their tears.

  Sometimes Lizochka’s mother would come into the room, and then the three of them would bewail their fate together.

  Eventually Bylinkin stopped calling on the Rundukovs. From that point on, whenever he’d encounter Lizochka in the street, he’d give her a proper, reserved bow, and then walk on…

  6

  This is how their love came to an end.

  Of course, at another time—say, three hundred years from now—their love wouldn’t have come to an end. Dear reader, it would have come into lush and extraordinary flower.

  But life dictates its own laws.

  Concluding his tale, the author wishes to say that, in the process of unfurling this unsophisticated love story and getting somewhat carried away with the experiences of its protagonists, he had completely lost sight of the nightingale, which was mentioned so mysteriously in the title.

  The author fears that the honest reader or typesetter, or even the desperate critic, might be unintentionally disappointed at the tale’s conclusion.

  “What gives?” they’ll say. “Where’s the nightingale?”

  “Why pull the wool over our eyes?” they’ll say. “Why entice the reader with such a light-hearted title?”

  It would, of course, be r
idiculous to start the love story over again. The author won’t even try it. He only wishes to fill in some details.

  This happened at the very height, at the very pinnacle of their sentimentalism, when Bylinkin and Lizochka would walk past the town limits and wander around in the woods late into the night. On occasion they would stand there for a long time, in perfectly immobile poses, listening to the chirr of the bugs and the singing of the nightingale. And often enough, at these moments, Lizochka would wring her hands and ask:

  “Vasya, what do you think that nightingale’s singing about?”

  To which Vasya Bylinkin would typically reply, in a reserved tone:

  “Little bastard wants grub.”

  And only later, after getting somewhat used to the young lady’s psychology, did Bylinkin begin to offer more detailed and nebulous responses. He would speculate that the bird was singing about some spectacularly beautiful future life.

  The author is of the same opinion: it was singing about a fabulous future life—which will come, say, three hundred years from now, maybe even sooner. Yes, dear reader, let those three hundred years pass like a dream, and then we’ll really live it up.

  Of course, if we get there and things are just as rotten, then the author consents, with a cold, empty heart, to consider himself a superfluous figure against the background of the ascendant way of life.

  And in that case, he might as well jump under a tram.

  1926

  A MERRY ADVENTURE

  1

  No, the author simply can’t plop down in bed, gay and lighthearted, with a Russian writer’s book in his hands.

  For his own peace of mind, the author prefers to plop down with a foreign book.

  It’s true—these foreigners write mighty pleasant stuff. With them it’s all luck and happiness. Nothing but success. And their characters are real lookers, walking around in silk dresses and powder-blue underpants. They take baths almost every single day. Brave, cheerful, lying through their teeth. And the endings are, of course, happy. In general, you close the book with joy in your heart, totally at peace.