by Teffi
The day dragged restlessly on. It was blustery outside and the wind was bending the trees. The branches shook; the leaves made a dry, boiling sound, like sea surf.
In the corridor, outside the store room, was a surprise: on the table stood an opened crate of oranges. It must have been brought from town that morning; after lunch they’d be handed out to us.
I adore oranges. They are round and golden, like the sun, and beneath their peel are thousands of tiny pockets bursting with sweet, fragrant juice. An orange is a joy. An orange is a thing of beauty.
And suddenly I thought of Ganka. She didn’t know about oranges. Warm tenderness and pity filled my heart.
Poor Ganka! She didn’t know. I must give her one. But how? To take one without asking was unthinkable. But if I did ask, I’d be told to wait until after lunch. And then I wouldn’t be able to take the orange away from table. I wouldn’t be allowed to, or they’d ask questions—someone might even guess. I’d be laughed at. Better just to take one without asking. I’d be punished, I wouldn’t be given any more—but so what? What was I afraid of ?
Round, cool and pleasing, the orange lay in my hand.
How could I? Thief! Thief! Never mind. There’d be time enough for all that—what mattered now was to find Ganka.
The girls turned out to be weeding right by the house, by the back door.
“Ganka! This is for you, for you! Try it—it’s for you.”
Her red mouth laughed.
“What is it?”
“It’s an orange. It’s for you.”
She turned it round and round in her hand. I mustn’t embarrass her.
I ran back inside and, sticking my head out of the corridor window, waited to see what would happen. I wanted to share in Ganka’s delight.
She bit off a piece together with the peel (Oh, why hadn’t I peeled it first?), then suddenly opened her mouth wide, made a horrible face, spat everything out and hurled the orange far into the bushes. The other girls stood around her, laughing. And she was still screwing up her face, shaking her head, spitting, and wiping her mouth with the cuff of her embroidered shirt.
I climbed down from the windowsill and went quickly to the dark end of the corridor. Squeezing behind a large chest covered with a dusty carpet, I sat on the floor and began to weep.
Everything was over. I had become a thief in order to give her the best thing I knew in all the world. And she hadn’t understood, and she had spat it out.
How would I ever survive this grief and this hurt?
I wept till I had no more tears. Then a new thought came into my head: “What if there are mice here behind the chest?”
This fear entered my soul, grew in strength, scared away my previous feelings and returned me to life.
In the corridor I bumped into Nanny. She threw up her hands in horror.
“Your dress! Your dress! You’re covered in muck, head to toe! And don’t tell me you’re crying again, are you?”
I said nothing. This morning humanity had failed to understand my silver rushes, which I had so longed to explain. And “this”—this was beyond telling. “This” was something I had to be alone with.
But humanity wanted an answer. It was shaking me by the shoulder. And I fended it off as best I could.
“I’m not crying. I . . . my . . . I’ve just got toothache.”
1924
Translated by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler
THE GREEN DEVIL
I could think of nothing else all month: Would they let me go to the Christmas party, or not?
I was cunning. I prepared the ground. I told my mother about the glorious achievements of Zhenya Ryazanova, for whom the party was being given. I said that Zhenya was doing very well at school, that she was almost top of the class and was always being held up as an example to us. And that she wasn’t just a little girl, but a very serious woman: she was already sixteen.
In short, I didn’t waste any time. And then, one fine morning I was called into the living room and told to stand in front of the big mirror and try on a white dress with a blue sash; I understood that I had won. I would be going to the party.
After that, preparations began in earnest: I took oil from the icon lamp in Nanny’s room and smeared it on my eyebrows every evening to make them grow thicker in time for the ball; I altered a corset my older sister had thrown away and then hid it under the mattress; I rehearsed sophisticated poses and enigmatic smiles in front of the mirror. My family expressed surprise. “Why’s Nadya looking so idiotic?” people kept asking. “I suppose she’s at that awkward age. Oh well, she’ll grow out of it.”
The Christmas party would be on the 24th. Zhenya’s name day.
I did everything in my power on the aesthetic front. With no resources at my disposal but a torn corset, I still managed to achieve a quite extraordinary effect. I cinched myself in so tight at the waist that I could only stand on tiptoe. I could barely breathe, and my face took on an imploring look. But it was a joy to make my first sacrifices in the name of beauty.
Nanny was to take me to the party. I put on my fur coat before saying goodbye to my family, so as not to overwhelm them with my shapeliness.
There were a lot of people at the Ryazanovs, and most of them grown up: officers, friends of Zhenya’s brother, ladies of various ages. There were only two or three younger girls like myself, and only one cadet between us, so we had to dance with the officers. This was a great honour, of course, but a little intimidating.
At dinner, despite all my attempts to manoeuvre myself into the place next to the cadet, I was seated beside a large officer with a black beard. He was probably about thirty, but at the time he seemed to me a decrepit creature whose life was behind him.
“A fine old relic to be sitting next to,” I thought. “Seems I’m in for a jolly evening!”
The officer studied me very seriously and said, “You’re a typical Cleopatra. Quite remarkable.”
Alarmed, I said nothing.
“I just said,” he went on, “that you remind me of Cleopatra. Have you done Cleopatra at school yet?”
“Yes.”
“You have her regal air, and you are just as sophisticated and experienced a flirt. The only thing is, your feet don’t touch the ground. But that’s a minor detail.”[1]
My heart beat faster. That I was an experienced flirt, I had no doubt. But how had this old man spotted it so very quickly?
“Look inside your napkin,” he said.
I looked. A pink chenille ballerina was poking out of the napkin.
“Look what I have.”
He had a green devil, with a tail made from silver metallic cord. The tail shook and the devil danced on a wire, so jolly and so beautiful that I gasped and reached my hand out towards it.
“Stop it!” he said. “He’s my devil! You have a ballerina. Tell her how pretty she is!”
He stood the devil in front of his plate.
“Look at him. Isn’t he wonderful? I can honestly say he’s the finest work of art I’ve ever seen. Still, I don’t suppose you’re interested in art. You’re a flirt. A Cleopatra. You just want to lure men to their doom.”
“Yes, he really is the very most handsome,” I babbled. “Nobody else has anyone like him.”
The officer briskly inspected the other guests. Everybody had a small chenille figure: a dog wearing a skirt, a chimney-sweep, a monkey. Nobody had a devil like he did. Or anything the least bit like him.
“Well, of course, a devil like him doesn’t come along every day of the week. Look at his tail. It shakes all by itself—without anyone even touching it. And he’s such a jolly little fellow!”
There was no need to tell me all this. I was already very taken with the devil. So much so that I didn’t even feel like eating.
“Why aren’t you eating? Did your mother tell you not to?”
Ugh, how very rude! What did my mother have to do with it, when I was a society woman dining with an officer at a ball?
“No
, merci, I just don’t feel like it. I never eat much at balls.”
“Really? Well, you know what’s best for you—you must have been to lots of balls over the years. But why aren’t you looking at my little devil? You won’t be able to admire him much longer, you know. Dinner will be over soon and I’ll be putting him in my pocket and going back home with him.”
“What will you do with him?” I asked, with timid hope.
“What do you mean? He will bring beauty to my lonely life. And then I’ll get married and show him to my wife, if she’s well-behaved. He’s a wonderful little devil, isn’t he?”
Horrid old, mean old man, I thought. Didn’t he understand how I loved that jolly devil? How I loved him!
If he hadn’t been so delighted with the devil himself, I might have suggested a swap. My ballerina for his devil. But he was so entranced with this devil that there seemed no point in pestering him.
“Why are you so sad all of a sudden?” he asked. “Is it because all this will be over soon? And you’ll never again see anything like him? It’s true, you don’t come across his sort so very often.”
I hated this unkind man. I even refused a second helping of ice cream, which I really wanted. I refused because I was very unhappy. Nothing in the world mattered to me any more. I had no use for any of life’s pleasures and believed in nothing.
•
Everyone got up from the table. And my companion hurried off, too. But the little devil was still there on the table. I waited. Not that I was thinking anything in particular. I wasn’t thinking with my head. It seemed that only my heart was thinking, because it began to beat fast and hard against the top of my tight corset.
The officer didn’t come back.
I took the devil. The springy silver tail whipped against my hand. Quick—into my pocket he went.
They were dancing again in the hall. The nice young cadet asked me for a dance. I didn’t dare. I was afraid the devil would jump out of my pocket.
I didn’t love the devil any more. He had not brought me joy. Only worry and anxiety. Perhaps I just needed to take a quick look at him—then I’d be ready to suffer for his sake. But as it was . . . What had I gone and done? Should I just slip in and put him back on the table? But the dining room door was locked now. Probably they were already clearing the table.
“Why are you looking so sad, my charming lady?”
The “old man” was standing beside me, smiling roguishly. “I’ve suffered a real tragedy,” he said. “My devil’s gone missing. I’m at my wit’s end. I’m going to ring the police. They need to carry out a search. There may be a dangerous criminal in our midst.”
He smiled. What he said about the police was, of course, a joke.
“How old are you?” he asked suddenly.
“I’ll be fifteen soon. In ten months.”
“Aha! As soon as that! So in three years’ time I could be marrying you. If only my dear little devil hadn’t disappeared so inexplicably. How will I be able to make my wife happy now? Why are you so silent? Do you think I’m too old for you?”
“Not now,” I answered gloomily. “But in three years’ time you’ll be an important general.”
“A general. That’s a nice thought. But what can have happened to my devil?”
I looked up into his face. I hated him so much and I was so hugely unhappy that he stopped smiling and walked away.
And I went to my friend’s room and, hiding behind the curtain (not that there was anyone else in the room), I took out the devil. He was a little squashed, but there was something else besides. He had changed. Looking at him no longer made me feel the least bit happy. I didn’t want to touch him, and I didn’t want to laugh. He was just the most ordinary devil, green chenille with a little silver tail. How could he make anybody happy? How ridiculous it all was!
I stood up on the window sill, opened the small pane at the top and threw him out on the street.
Nanny was waiting for me in the hall.
The officer walked up to us, glanced at Nanny and chuckled: “Here to collect our Queen Cleopatra, are you?”
And then he fell silent, looked at me thoughtfully and said, simply and kindly, “Off you go. Off to bed with you, little one. You’ve gone quite pale. God bless you.”
I said goodbye and left, quiet and tired.
B-o-r-i-n-g.[2]
1925
Translated by Rose France
VALYA
I was in my twenty-first year.
She, my daughter, was in her fourth.[1]
We were not well matched.
I was rather nervy and unpredictable at that time, usually either crying or laughing.
Valya, on the other hand, was very even-tempered and calm. And from morning to night she was engaged in commerce—bargaining with me for chocolates.
In the morning she would not get up until she was given a chocolate. Nor would she go out for a walk, come back from a walk, have breakfast, have lunch, drink milk, get into the bath, get out of the bath, sleep or comb her hair except for a fee—a chocolate. Without chocolate, all life would come to a standstill, all activity replaced by a deafening, systematic howl. Then I would feel I was a monster, a child-killer. And I would give in to her.
Valya despised me for my lack of good sense—that was clear enough. But she didn’t treat me too badly. Sometimes she would even pet me with her soft, warm hand, which was always sticky from sweets.
“You’re so pretty,” she would say. “You have a nose like my elly-phant.”
Not particularly flattering. But I knew that my daughter thought her little rubber elephant more beautiful than the Venus de Milo. We all have our different ideals. So I was happy to hear her say this, although I tried not to encourage endearments from her when there were other people around.
Apart from sweets, Valya was interested in very little. Though once, while drawing moustaches on some elderly aunts in a photograph album, she asked in passing, “So where is Jesus Christ now?”
And, without waiting for an answer, she demanded a chocolate.
She was very strict about decorum. She insisted on being the first to be greeted by everyone. On one occasion she came up to me very upset and indignant indeed: “Motya the cook’s daughter has gone out on the balcony in only her skirt,” she said. “And there are geese out there.”
Yes, she was very punctilious.
It seemed that year as if Christmas would be a rather sad, anxious time. Sometimes I was able to laugh, since I wanted so badly to live on God’s earth. But more often I cried, since life was proving almost beyond me.
For days on end Valya talked with her little elephant about a Christmas tree. It was clear that I would have to get hold of one.
In secret, I ordered some Dresden ornaments from Muir and Mirrielees.[2] I unpacked them at night.
They were absolutely wonderful: little houses and lanterns, parrots in golden cages. But best of all was a little angel, all covered in gold glitter, with iridescent mica wings. The angel hung on a piece of elastic and its wings fluttered when it moved. What the angel was made of, I don’t know. It could have been wax. It had pink cheeks and it held a rose in its hands. I had never seen anything so marvellous.
And at once I thought, “Better not hang it on the tree. In any case its beauty will be lost on Valya. She’ll only break it. I’ll keep it for myself.”
So that’s what I decided to do.
But in the morning, Valya sneezed. She must have caught a cold, I thought. I was seized with anxiety.
She might look chubby, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t delicate. I didn’t take good enough care of her. I was a bad mother. And now, wanting to keep the best for myself, I’d hidden the angel. “Its beauty will be lost on her,” I had said to myself. But if that were the case, it was only because I hadn’t taught her to appreciate beauty.
On the night before Christmas, when I was decorating the tree, I took out the angel. I looked at it for a long time. What a pretty little thing
it was, with that rose in its chubby little hand. It looked so cheerful, so rosy-cheeked, yet so gentle. An angel like that should be hidden away in a box, and only on bad days—when the postman brought me horrid letters, and the lamps burned low and the wind made the roof rattle—only then should I allow myself to take it out, to dangle it gently on its elastic and watch the glitter of the gold and the play of light on the mica wings. This might not sound like much. It might sound sad. But did I have anything better to look forward to?
I hung the angel high up on the tree. It was the most beautiful of all the ornaments, so it had to be in the place of honour. But all the time there was another thought in my head—a secret, mean thought. High up, it would be less obvious to smaller persons.
That evening we lit the candles on the tree. We invited Motka, and Lyoshka, the laundrywoman’s son. And Valya was so sweet and affectionate that my hard heart began to melt. I lifted her up in my arms and I showed her the angel.
“An angel?” she said in her businesslike way. “Give it to me.”
I gave it to her.
She looked at it for a long time, stroking its wings with one finger.
I saw that she liked the angel, and I felt proud of my daughter. After all, she hadn’t paid the least attention to the stupid clown, even though it was so brightly coloured.
Valya suddenly bent forward and kissed the angel. My darling girl!
At that moment Niushenka, one of our neighbours, arrived. She had brought a gramophone with her. We began to dance.
Really I ought to hide the angel, I thought. It’ll only get broken . . . But where was Valya?
Valya was standing in the corner behind the bookshelf. Her mouth and cheeks were smeared with something raspberry-coloured. She looked troubled.
“What is it, Valya? What’s the matter? What’s that in your hand?”
In her hand were the mica wings, crumpled and broken.
“It tasted a bit sweet,” she said.
I must wash her at once, I thought. I must scrub her tongue. That was what mattered—the paint might be poisonous. She seemed, thank God, to be all right. But why was I crying as I threw the broken mica wings in the fire? How very silly of me! I was crying!
