At The Tolstoy Museum
AT the Tolstoy Museum we sat and wept. Paper streamers came out of our eyes. Our gaze drifted toward the pictures. They were placed too high on the wall. We suggested to the director that they be lowered six inches at least. He looked unhappy but said he would see to it. The holdings of the Tolstoy Museum consist principally of some thirty thousand pictures of Count Leo Tolstoy.
After they had lowered the pictures we went back to the Tolstoy Museum. I don’t think you can peer into one man’s face too long—for too long a period. A great many human passions could be discerned, behind the skin.
Tolstoy means “fat” in Russian. His grandfather sent his linen to Holland to be washed. His mother did not know any bad words. As a youth he shaved off his eyebrows, hoping they would grow back bushier. He first contracted gonorrhea in 1847. He was once bitten on the face by a bear. He became a vegetarian in 1885. To make himself interesting, he occasionally bowed backward.
I was eating a sandwich at the Tolstoy Museum. The Tolstoy Museum is made of stone—many stones, cunningly wrought Viewed from the street, it has the aspect of three stacked boxes: the first, second, and third levels. These are of increasing size. The first level is, say, the size of a shoebox, the second level the size of a case of whiskey, and the third level the size of a box that contained a new overcoat. The amazing cantilever of the third level has been much talked about. The glass floor there allows one to look straight down and provides a “floating” feeling. The entire building, viewed from the street, suggests that it is about to fall on you. This the architects relate to Tolstoy’s moral authority.
Tolstoy’s Coat
In the basement of the Tolstoy Museum carpenters uncrated new pictures of Count Leo Tolstoy. The huge crates stenciled FRAGILE in red ink …
The guards at the Tolstoy Museum carry buckets in which there are stacks of clean white pocket handkerchiefs. More than any other museum, the Tolstoy Museum induces weeping. Even the bare title of a Tolstoy work, with its burden of love, can induce weeping—for example, the article titled “Who Should Teach Whom to Write, We the Peasant Children or the Peasant Children Us?” Many people stand before this article, weeping. Too, those who are caught by Tolstoy’s eyes, in the various portraits, room after room after room, are not unaffected by the experience. It is like, people say, committing a small crime and being discovered at it by your father, who stands in four doorways, looking at you.
I was reading a story of Tolstoy’s at the Tolstoy Museum. In this story a bishop is sailing on a ship. One of his fellow-passengers tells the Bishop about an island on which three hermits live. The hermits are said to be extremely devout. The Bishop is seized with a desire to see and talk with the hermits. He persuades the captain of the ship to anchor near the island. He goes ashore in a small boat. He speaks to the hermits. The hermits tell the Bishop how they worship God. They have a prayer that goes: “Three of You, three of us, have mercy on us.” The Bishop feels that this is a prayer prayed in the wrong way. He undertakes to teach the hermits the Lord’s Prayer. The hermits learn the Lord’s Prayer but with the greatest difficulty. Night has fallen by the time they have got it correctly.
The Bishop returns to his ship, happy that he has been able to assist the hermits in their worship. The ship sails on. The Bishop sits alone on deck, thinking about the experiences of the day. He sees a light in the sky, behind the ship. The light is cast by the three hermits floating over the water, hand in hand, without moving their feet. They catch up with the ship, saying: “We have forgotten, servant of God, we have forgotten your teaching!” They ask him to teach them again. The Bishop crosses himself. Then he tells the hermits that their prayer, too, reaches God. “It is not for me to teach you. Pray for us sinners!” The Bishop bows to the deck. The hermits fly back over the sea, hand in hand, to their island.
Tolstoy as a Youth
At Starogladkovskaya, About 1852
Tiger Hunt, siberia
The story is written in a very simple style. It is said to originate in a folk tale. There is a version of it in St. Augustine. I was incredibly depressed by reading this story. Its beauty. Distance.
At the Tolstoy Museum, sadness grasped the 741 Sunday visitors. The Museum was offering a series of lectures on the text “Why Do Men Stupefy Themselves?” The visitors were made sad by these eloquent speakers, who were probably right.
The Anna-Vronsky Pavilion
At the Disaster (Arrow Indicates Tolstoy)
People stared at tiny pictures of Turgenev, Nekrasov, and Fet. These and other small pictures hung alongside extremely large pictures of Count Leo Tolstoy.
In the plaza, a sinister musician played a wood trumpet while two children watched.
We considered the 640,086 pages (Jubilee Edition) of the author’s published work. Some people wanted him to go away, but other people were glad we had him. “He has been a lifelong source of inspiration to me,” one said.
I haven’t made up my mind. Standing here in the “Summer in the Country” Room, several hazes passed over my eyes. Still, I think I will march on to “A Landlord’s Morning.” Perhaps something vivifying will happen to me there.
Museum Plaza With Monumental Head (Closed Mondays)
The Flight Of Pigeons From The Palace
IN the abandoned palazzo, weeds and old blankets filled the rooms. The palazzo was in bad shape. We cleaned the abandoned palazzo for ten years. We scoured the stones. The splendid architecture was furbished and painted. The doors and windows were dealt with. Then we were ready for the show.
The noble and empty spaces were perfect for our purposes. The first act we hired was the amazing Numbered Man. He was numbered from one to thirty-five, and every part moved. And he was genial and polite, despite the stresses to which his difficult métier subjected him. He never failed to say “Hello” and “Goodbye” and “Why not?” We were happy to have him in the show.
Then, the Sulking Lady was obtained. She showed us her back. That was the way she felt. She had always felt that way, she said. She had felt that way since she was four years old.
We obtained other attractions—a Singing Sword and a Stone Eater. Tickets and programs were prepared. Buckets of water were placed about, in case of fire. Silver strings tethered the loud-roaring strong-stinking animals.
The lineup for opening night included:
A startlingly handsome man
A Grand Cham
A tulip craze
The Prime Rate
Edgar Allan Poe
A colored light
We asked ourselves: How can we improve the show?
We auditioned an explosion.
There were a lot of situations where men were being evil to women—dominating them and eating their food. We put those situations in the show.
In the summer of the show, grave robbers appeared in the show. Famous graves were robbed, before your eyes. Winding-sheets were unwound and things best for gotten were remembered. Sad themes were played by the band, bereft of its mind by the death of its tradition. In the soft evening of the show, a troupe of agoutis performed tax evasion atop tall, swaying yellow poles. Before your eyes.
The trapeze artist with whom I had an understanding … The moment when she failed to catch me …
Did she really try? I can’t recall her ever failing to catch anyone she was really fond of. Her great muscles are too deft for that. Her great muscles at which we gaze through heavy-lidded eyes …
We recruited fools for the show. We had spots for a number of fools (and in the big all-fool number that occurs immediately after the second act, some specialties). But fools are hard to find. Usually they don’t like to admit it. We settled for gowks, gulls, mooncalfs. A few babies, boobies, sillies, simps. A barmie was engaged, along with certain dum-dums and beefheads. A noodle. When you see them all wandering around, under the colored lights, gibbering and performing miracles, you are surprised.
I put my father in the show, with his cold eyes. His segme
nt was called My Father Concerned About His Liver.
Performances flew thick and fast.
We performed The Sale of the Public Library.
We performed Space Monkeys Approve Appropriations.
We did Theological Novelties and we did Cereal Music (with its raisins of beauty) and we did not neglect Piles of Discarded Women Rising from the Sea.
There was faint applause. The audience huddled together. The people counted their sins.
Scenes of domestic life were out in the show.
We used The Flight of Pigeons from the Palace.
It is difficult to keep the public interested.
The public demands new wonders piled on new wonders.
Often we don’t know where our next marvel is coming from.
The supply of strange ideas is not endless.
The development of new wonders is not like the production of canned goods. Some things appear to be wonders in the beginning, but when you become familiar with them, are not wonderful at all. Sometimes a seventy-five-foot highly paid cacodemon will raise only the tiniest frisson. Some of us have even thought of folding the show—closing it down. That thought has been gliding through the hallways and rehearsal rooms of the show.
The new volcano we have just placed under contract seems very promising….
A Few Moments Of Sleeping And Waking
EDWARD woke up. Pia was already awake.
“What did you dream?”
“You were my brother,” Pia said. “We were making a film. You were the hero. It was a costume film. You had a cape and a sword. You were jumping about, jumping on tables. But in the second half of the film you had lost all your weight. You were thin. The film was ruined. The parts didn’t match.”
“I was your brother?”
Scarlatti from the radio. It was Sunday. Pete sat at the breakfast table. Pete was a doctor on an American nuclear submarine, a psychiatrist. He had just come off patrol, fifty-eight days under the water. Pia gave Pete scrambled eggs with mushrooms, wienerbrød, salami with red wine in it, bacon. Pete interpreted Pia’s dream.
“Edward was your brother?”
“Yes.”
“And your real brother is going to Italy, you said.”
“Yes.”
“It may be something as simple as a desire to travel.”
Edward and Pia and Pete went for a boat ride, a tour of the Copenhagen harbor. The boat held one hundred and twenty tourists. They sat, four tourists abreast, on either side of the aisle. A guide spoke into a microphone in Danish, French, German, and English, telling the tourists what was in the harbor.
“I interpreted that dream very sketchily,” Pete said to Edward.
“Yes.”
“I could have done a lot more with it.”
“Don’t.”
“This is the Danish submarine fleet,” the guide said into the microphone. Edward and Pia and Pete regarded the four black submarines. There had been a flick every night on Pete’s submarine. Pete discussed the fifty-eight flicks he had seen. Pete sat on Edward’s couch discussing The Sound of Music. Edward made drinks. Rose’s Lime Juice fell into the gimlet glasses. Then Edward and Pia took Pete to the airport. Pete flew away. Edward bought The Interpretatión of Dreams.
Pia dreamed that she had journeyed to a great house, a castle, to sing. She had found herself a bed in a room overlooking elaborate gardens. Then another girl appeared, a childhood friend. The new girl demanded Pia’s bed. Pia refused. The other girl insisted. Pia refused. The other girl began to sing. She sang horribly. Pia asked her to stop. Other singers appeared, demanding that Pia surrender the bed. Pia refused. People stood about the bed, shouting and singing.
Edward smoked a cigar. “Why didn’t you just give her the bed?”
“My honor would be hurt,” Pia said. “You know, that girl is not like that. Really she is very quiet and not asserting—asserting?—asserting herself. My mother said I should be more like her.”
“The dream was saying that your mother was wrong about this girl?”
“Perhaps.”
“What else?”
“I can’t remember.”
“Did you sing?”
“I can’t remember,” Pia said.
Pia’s brother Søren rang the doorbell. He was carrying a pair of trousers. Pia sewed up a split in the seat. Edward made instant coffee. Pia explained blufaerdighedskraenkelse. “If you walk with your trousers open,” she said. Søren gave Edward and Pia The Joan Baez Songbook. “It is a very good one,” he said in English. The doorbell rang. It was Pia’s father. He was carrying a pair of shoes Pia had left at the farm. Edward made more coffee. Pia sat on the floor cutting a dress out of blue, red, and green cloth. Ole arrived. He was carrying his guitar. He began to play something from The Joan Baez Songbook. Edward regarded Ole’s Mowgli hair. We be of one blood, thee and I. Edward read The Interpretation of Dreams. “In cases where not my ego but only a strange person appears in the dream-content, I may safely assume that by means of identification my ego is concealed behind that person. I am permitted to supplement my ego.”
Edward sat at a sidewalk café drinking a beer. He was wearing his brown suède shoes, his black dungarees, his black-and-white-checked shirt, his red beard, his immense spectacles. Edward regarded his hands. His hands seemed old. “I am thirty-three.” Tiny girls walked past the sidewalk café wearing skintight black pants. Then large girls in skintight white pants.
Edward and Pia walked along Frederiksberg Allé, under the queer box-cut trees. “Here I was knocked off my bicycle when I was seven,” Pia said. “By a car. In a snowstorm.”
Edward regarded the famous intersection. “Were you hurt?”
“My bicycle was demolished utterly.”
Edward read The Interpretation of Dreams. Pia bent over the sewing machine, sewing blue, red, and green cloth.
“Freud turned his friend R. into a disreputable uncle, in a dream.”
“Why?”
“He wanted to be an assistant professor. He was bucking for assistant professor.”
“So why was it not allowed?”
“They didn’t know he was Freud. They hadn’t seen the movie.”
“You’re joking.”
“I’m trying.”
Edward and Pia talked about dreams. Pia said she had been dreaming about unhappy love affairs. In these dreams, she said, she was very unhappy. Then she woke, relieved.
“How long?”
“For about two months, I think. But then I wake up and I’m happy. That it is not so.”
“Why are they unhappy love affairs?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think it means you want new love affairs?”
“Why should I want unhappy love affairs?”
“Maybe you want to have love affairs but feel guilty about wanting to have love affairs, and so they become unhappy love affairs.”
“That’s subtle,” Pia said. “You’re insecure.”
“Ho!” Edward said.
“But why then am I happy when I wake up?”
“Because you don’t have to feel guilty anymore,” Edward said glibly.
“Ho!” Pia said.
Edward resisted The Interpretation of Dreams. He read eight novels by Anthony Powell. Pia walked down the street in Edward’s blue sweater. She looked at herself in a shop window. Her hair was rotten. Pia went into the bathroom and played with her hair for one hour. Then she brushed her teeth for a bit. Her hair was still rotten. Pia sat down and began to cry. She cried for a quarter hour, without making any noise. Everything was rotten.
Edward bought Madam Cherokee’s Dream Book. Dreams in alphabetical order. If you dream of black cloth, there will be a death in the family. If you dream of scissors, a birth. Edward and Pia saw three films by Jean-Luc Godard. The landlord came and asked Edward to pay Danish income tax. “But I don’t make any money in Denmark,” Edward said. Everything was rotten.
Pia came home from the hairdresser with black
varnish around her eyes.
“How do you like it?”
“I hate it.”
Pia was chopping up an enormous cabbage, a cabbage big as a basketball. The cabbage was of an extraordinary size. It was a big cabbage.
“That’s a big cabbage,” Edward said.
“Big,” Pia said.
They regarded the enormous cabbage God had placed in the world for supper.
“Is there vinegar?” Edward asked. “I like … vinegar … with my …” Edward read a magazine for men full of colored photographs of naked girls living normal lives. Edward read the New Statesman, with its letters to the editor. Pia appeared in her new blue, red, and green dress. She looked wonderful.
“You look wonderful.”
“Tak.”
“Tables are women,” Edward said. “You remember you said I was jumping on tables, in your dream. Freud says that tables are figures for women. You’re insecure.”
“La vache!” Pia said.
Pia reported a new dream. “I came home to a small town where I was born. First, I ran around as a tourist with my camera. Then a boy who was selling something—from one of those little wagons?—asked me to take his picture. But I couldn’t find him in the photo apparat. In the view glass. Always other people got in the way. Everyone in this town was divorced. Everybody I knew. Then I went to a ladies’ club, a place where the women asked the men to dance. But there was only one man there. His picture was on an advertisement outside. He was the gigolo. Gigolo? Is that right? Then I called up people I knew, on the telephone. But they were all divorced. Everybody was divorced. My mother and father were divorced. Helle and Jens were divorced. Everybody. Everybody was floating about in a strange way.”
Forty Stories (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) Page 13
