Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me

by Teffi

  There was no one we could ask, and we weren’t allowed to fight. What could we do?

  At last, Liza arrived.

  Liza had a thin, taut face. Her big, pale, bulging eyes always bore a look of startled inspiration. She saw everything two or three times larger than life, and told lies as if she lied for a living.

  She was a year older than me. She had already been twice to confession. Lena and I looked on her with respect.

  We knew every detail about Liza’s home life, all of which was quite fascinating.

  Liza had an uncle, a seminary student, Pyotr Yakovlevich, who had once drunk the milk of four cows. He had arrived to find no one at home and all the milk from that evening’s milking standing in the porch, and he had drunk the lot.

  Also, Liza’s family had four golden grand pianos at home, but they were hidden in the hayloft, so that nobody could see them.

  Also, nobody ever ate dinner at Liza’s house. Instead, there was a big cupboard in the hall that was always full of roast chickens. If anyone was hungry, all he had to do was to poke his head into the cupboard, eat a chicken and go on his way.

  Also, Liza had fourteen velvet dresses, but she only wore them at night so that nobody would see them. In the daytime she hid them in the kitchen under the big pot they used for making pastry.

  Also, Liza spoke very good French, but not the kind of French we spoke with our governess. Liza spoke a different kind of French, which nobody understood.

  All in all, Liza’s life was quite fascinating.

  So there we were, sitting quietly and talking. Liza was telling us her news. First, we had to cross our hearts and swear not to tell a soul.

  We crossed our hearts and swore. To make it still more binding, we spat over our left shoulders.

  “You promise not to tell a soul?”

  “Not a soul, for ever and ever, Amen.”

  Liza shot a glance at the door, her eyes pale and terrible, and whispered, “The wife of Trifon the gardener gave birth to two puppies and told everyone they were children, but when people started to ask questions, she roasted them and gave them to Trifon to eat.”

  “But you can’t eat puppies,” said Lena in fright. “It’s a sin.”

  “But she never told anyone they were puppies. She told everyone they were children.”

  I felt my hands grow cold. And Liza was frightened too; she had tears in her eyes and her nose was all swollen: “It was the Devil got into her. Everyone knows it’s easy for the Devil to creep up on people when they’re asleep.”

  “Have you ever seen the Devil, Liza?”

  “Yes. Evening’s the time to look out for him. If the cross round your neck suddenly shines very bright, that means the Devil will definitely come.”

  “So you’ve seen him?”

  “Yes, I’ve seen him. If I wake up in the night and I poke my head out of the bedclothes, I always see a devil over Papa’s head, and a devil over Mama’s head. Papa and Mama both have a devil standing over them all night long.”

  “And black cats, too,” I said. “Black cats are full of it too.”

  “Full of what?”

  “Full of the Devil. If a black cat crosses your path, something bad will definitely happen to you.”

  “Even a black hare can be dangerous,” added Lena.

  I was genuinely surprised. How did my little sister know this without me telling her?

  “Yes, very dangerous,” agreed Liza. “When our Lida was dying I went with my Aunt Katya to Lichevka to buy some muslin. On our way back, a black cat ran across the road. And then, all of a sudden, a hare! And then a wolf! And then a bear! And then a tiger! And a mole! And when we got back, Lidochka was already dead.”

  I was so excited that for some time now I had been kneeling on my chair with my elbows on the table.

  “Oh, that’s so awful, Liza,” I said. “Though, you know, I’m not afraid of anything—not really. I’m only afraid of wolves. And ghosts. And dark rooms. And dead people. I’m awfully afraid of dead people. And sleeping in a room all by myself. And I’d never go out in the forest alone. But apart from that, I’m not afraid of anything. If someone gave me a gun for Easter, I’d shoot the lot of them straightaway, right in the head. Just like that! I’m not afraid of anything.”

  “So, what are you getting for Easter?” asked Liza.

  “I don’t know. A croquet set, maybe. What about you?”

  “I’m getting—a croquet set too, and a . . . grand piano.”

  “But I thought you already had some grand pianos!”

  “Yes, but we need more. And then, I’m getting a carriage. And a gold-plated tin of sardines. And gold-embroidered slippers. And a golden comb. And a golden spoon.”

  Lucky Liza. Everything she has is made of gold.

  “Liza, why is it you always smell of onion? And smoke?”

  “Oh, that’s the eau de cologne we use.”

  Lena gawped at Liza. But I knew that there were different kinds of eau de cologne, made with different flowers and herbs. Clearly, Liza’s family used eau de cologne made with onion.

  “Are you going to the Easter Vigil?” Liza asked suddenly.

  Oh. That was the question I had been dreading. All through Good Friday we had been talking about the Vigil and what dresses we’d be given to wear. We were so hoping it would be our light blue ones.

  I pretended I hadn’t heard. But then, to my amazement, I heard Lena answering calmly, “We don’t know yet. It depends on the weather.”

  Clever Lena! I’d never have come up with that myself.

  “Aunt Sonia said that last year she was in Arkhangelsk at Easter, and it snowed,” I said, doing my bit to salvage our dignity.

  “My mama told me,” remarked Liza with an astonishing lack of tact, “that your parents aren’t taking you to church this year.”

  Nanny came in with a pile of freshly ironed pinafores over one arm. With her free hand, she slapped her hip indignantly.

  “Look at this one, kneeling again! She’s worn all the legs of her stockings to holes. How on earth am I meant to keep up with the darning?”

  “This one”, of course, was me.

  To obey immediately and get down from the chair would be demeaning. I slowly lowered one leg, as if of my own accord.

  “Well, are you getting down from the chair or not?” exclaimed Nanny impatiently. “Whatever I say it’s like water off a duck’s back! Liza, put your coat on, your auntie’s come for you.”

  Liza got up. Now it was safe to get down from the chair.

  Liza tied a woollen shawl around her head. With a sideways glance at Nanny, she whispered, “Your nanny doesn’t have feathers in her eiderdown, she has three million roubles hidden in there, in gold coins. And it’s no secret—the robbers all know.”

  In her dark shawl Liza’s face looked thin and pale. What she had just said made me feel afraid for Nanny. Lena’s bottom lip began to twist and wobble from side to side. She was about to cry.

  Liza glanced quickly again at Nanny, out of the corner of her eye, as if to warn us to keep our mouths shut.

  She left. Lena and I were now on our own. Neither of us said anything.

  After Liza’s visits, everything felt somehow special, mysterious and unsettling.

  The thin branches of the cherry tree, already green with buds, stirred restlessly outside the window, peering into the room.

  The blanket on Nanny’s bed also seemed to be stirring. Maybe a robber had got in and was now lying hidden under the blanket, stealing the gold . . .

  1927

  Translated by Rose France

  LOVE

  It was the wonderful days of my ninth spring—days that were long and full to the brim, saturated with life.

  Everything in those days was interesting, important and full of meaning. Objects were new. And people were wise; they knew an astonishing amount and were keeping their great dark secrets until some unknown day in the future.

  The morning of each long day began joyfull
y: thousands of small rainbows in the soapy foam of the wash bowl; a new, brightly coloured light dress; a prayer before the icon, behind which the stems of pussy willow were still fresh; tea on a terrace shaded by lemon trees that had been carried out from the orangery in their tubs; my elder sisters, black-browed and with long plaits, only just back from boarding school for the holidays and still seeming strange to me; the slap of washing bats from the pond beyond the flower garden, where the women doing the laundry were calling out to one another in ringing voices; the languid clucking of hens behind a clump of young, still small-leaved lilac. Not only was everything new and joyful in itself but it was, moreover, a promise of something still more new and joyful.

  And it was during this spring, the ninth of my life, that my first love came, revealed itself and left—in all its fullness, with rapture and pain and disenchantment, with all that is to be expected of any true love.

  •

  Four peasant girls, Khodoska, Paraska, Pidorka and Khovra—all wearing coin necklaces, Ukrainian wraparound skirts and linen shirts with embroidered shoulders—were weeding the garden paths. They scraped and hacked at the fresh black earth with their spades, turning over thick, oily sods and tearing away crackly, tenacious rootlets as thin as nerves.

  For hours on end, until I was called, I would stand and watch, and breathe in the heavy damp smell of the earth.

  Necklaces dangled and clinked, arms red from the year’s first strong sun slid lightly and gaily up and down the spades’ wooden handles.

  And then one day, instead of Khovra, who was fair and stocky, with a thin red band around her head, I saw a new girl—tall and lithe, with narrow hips.

  “Hey, new girl, what’s your name?” I asked.

  A dark head encircled by thick, four-stranded plaits and with a narrow white parting down the centre turned towards me, and dark, mischievous eyes looked at me from beneath curved eyebrows that met in the middle, and a merry red mouth smiled at me.

  “Ganka!”

  And her teeth gleamed—even, white and large.

  She said her name and laughed, and the other girls all laughed, and I felt merry too.

  This Ganka was astonishing. Why was she laughing? And what was it about her that made me feel so merry? She was not as well dressed as smart Paraska, but her thick striped skirt was wound so deftly round her shapely hips, her red woollen sash gripped her waist so firmly and vibrantly and her bright green ribbon fluttered so arrestingly by the collar of her shirt that it was hard to imagine anything prettier.

  I looked at her, and every move, every turn of her supple dark neck sang like a song in my soul. And her eyes flashed again, mischievous, as if tickling me; they laughed, then looked down.

  I also felt astonished by Paraska, Khodoska and Pidorka—how could they keep their eyes off her? How did they dare behave as if they were her equals? Were they blind? But then even she herself seemed to think she was no different from the others.

  I looked at her fixedly, without thoughts, as if dreaming.

  From far away a voice called my name. I knew I was being called to my music lesson, but I didn’t answer.

  Then I saw Mama going down a nearby avenue with two smartly dressed ladies I didn’t know. Mama called to me. I had to go and drop a curtsy to them. One of the ladies lifted my chin with a little hand sheathed in a perfumed white glove. She was gentle, all in white, all in lace. Looking at her, I suddenly felt Ganka was coarse and rough.

  “No, Ganka’s not nice,” I thought.

  I wandered quietly back to the house.

  •

  Placid, merry and carefree, I went out the following morning to see where the girls were weeding now.

  Those sweet dark eyes met me as gaily and affectionately as if nothing had happened, as if I had never betrayed them for a perfumed lady in lace. And again the singing music of the movements of her slender body took over, began to enchant.

  The conversation at breakfast was about yesterday’s guest, Countess Mionchinskaya. My eldest brother was sincerely enraptured by her. He was straightforward and kind but, since he was being educated at the lycée, he felt it necessary to lisp and drawl and slightly drag his right foot as he walked.[1] And, doubtless afraid that a summer deep in the country might erase these stigmata of the dandy, he greatly surprised us younger ones with his strange mannerisms.

  “The countess is divi-i-inely beau-utiful!” he said. “She was the to-oast of the se-ea-son.”

  My other brother, a cadet at the military academy, did not agree. “I don’t see anything so special about her. She may put on airs, but she’s got the mitts of a peasant—the mitts of a baba who’s been soaking neckweed.”[2]

  The first brother poured scorn on this: “Qu’est-ce que c’est mitt? Qu’est-ce que c’est baba? Qu’est-ce que c’est neckweed?”

  “But I’ll tell you who really is a beauty,” the second brother continued, “and that’s Ganka who works in the garden.”

  “Hah!”

  “She’s badly dressed, of course, but give her a lace gown and gloves and she’ll beat your countess hands down.”

  My heart started beating so fast I had to close my eyes.

  “How can you talk such rubbish?” said my sister Vera, taking offence on the countess’s behalf. “Ganka’s coarse, and she has no manners. She probably eats fish with a knife.”

  I was in torment. It seemed as if something, some secret of mine, was about to be revealed—but what this secret was I did not even know myself.

  “Although that, I think we can say, has nothing to do with it,” said the first brother. “Helen of Troy didn’t have French governesses, and she ate fish with her fingers—not even with a knife—yet her renown as a world beauty remains unchallenged. What’s the matter, Kishmish? Why have you gone so red?”

  “Kishmish” was my nickname.[3] I answered in a trembling voice, “Leave me in peace. I’m not doing you any harm. But you . . . you’re always picking on me.”

  In the evening, lying on the sofa in the dark drawing room, I heard my mother in the hall; she was playing a piece I loved, the cavatina from the opera Martha.[4] Something in the soft, tender melody evoked—called up within me—the same singing languor that I had seen in Ganka’s movements. And this sweet torment, and the music, and my sadness and happiness made me cry, burying my face in a cushion.

  •

  It was a grey morning, and I was afraid it would rain and I wouldn’t be allowed out into the garden.

  I was, indeed, not allowed out.

  I sat down sadly at the piano and began playing exercises, stumbling each time in the same place.

  But later in the morning the sun appeared and I raced out into the garden.

  The girls had just thrown down their spades and sat down for their midday meal. They got out pots and jugs wrapped in cloths and began to eat. One was eating buckwheat kasha, another had some soured milk. Ganka unwrapped her own little bundle, took out a thick crust of bread and a bulb of garlic, rubbed the bread with the garlic and began to eat, shining her mischievous eyes at me.

  I took fright and went away. How terrible that Ganka ate such filth. It was as if the garlic had thrust her away from me. She had become alien and incomprehensible. Better if she’d eaten fish with a knife.

  I remembered what my brother had said about Yelena the Beautiful,[5] but this brought me no consolation and I plodded back to the house.

  Nanny was sitting by the back door, knitting a stocking and listening to the housekeeper.

  I heard the name “Ganka” and froze. I knew only too well that if I went up to them they’d either shoo me away or stop talking.

  “She worked for the steward’s wife all winter. She’s a hardworking girl. But not an evening went by—the steward’s wife noticed—without a soldier coming to see her. The steward’s wife packed him off once, and she packed him off twice—but what could the good woman do? She couldn’t be packing him off night after night.”

  “Indeed!” said Nanny. “How
could she?”

  “So she scolded her now and again, of course, but Ganka just laughed—it was water off a duck’s back. Then, just before Twelfth Night, the steward’s wife hears noises in the kitchen—as if Ganka were constantly pushing something about the room. And then, first thing in the morning, she hears tiny squeals. She hurries into the kitchen: not a sign of Ganka—just a baby wrapped up in pieces of cloth, lying on some bedding and letting out little squeals. She takes fright. She looks everywhere: where was Ganka? Had something very bad happened? She looks out through the window—and there she is. Standing by the hole in the ice, barefoot, washing out her linen and singing away. The steward’s wife would have liked to dismiss her, but how could she manage without her? It’s not easy to find such a sturdy, hard-working lass.”

  I slipped quietly off.

  So Ganka was friends with a common, uneducated soldier. This was horrible, horrible. And then she had tormented some little baby. This really was something dark and terrible. She had stolen it from somewhere and wrapped it up in rags; and when it had begun to squeal, she’d run off to the ice hole and sung songs there.

  All evening I was in misery. That night I had a dream from which I awoke in tears. But my dream was neither sad nor frightening, and I was crying not from grief but from rapture. When I woke, I could barely remember it. I could only say, “I dreamt of a boat. It was quite transparent, light blue. It floated through the wall, straight into silver rushes. Everything was poetry and music.”

  “So why all the howling?” asked Nanny. “It’s only a boat! Maybe this boat of yours will bring you something good.”

  I could see she didn’t understand, but there was nothing more I could say or explain. And my soul was ringing, singing, weeping in ecstasy. A light-blue boat, silver rushes, poetry and music.

  I didn’t go out into the garden. I was afraid I’d see Ganka and begin thinking about the soldier and the little baby wrapped up in cloth, that everything would once again become frightening and incomprehensible.