Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me

by Teffi

  I was rather surprised by S——’s persistence, as I didn’t know her so very well. She wasn’t hoping to get me to give some kind of a reading, was she? That was the last thing I wanted. I expressed my misgivings.

  “Oh no,” my friend assured me. “I promise you that she has no hidden designs. S——is simply very fond of you and would like to see you. Anyway, it should be a very enjoyable evening. There won’t be many guests, just friends, because they can’t put on grand balls now, not while we’re at war. That would be in poor taste. There will be no one there who shouldn’t be there—no one superfluous. They’re people who know how to give a good party.”

  11

  We arrived after eleven.

  There were a lot of people. Among the tail coats and evening dresses were a number of figures in identical black or light-blue domino masks. They were the only ones in fancy dress; it was clear they had come as a group.

  My friend took me by the arm and led me to our hostess: “Well, here she is. See? I’ve brought her with me.”

  A Gypsy was singing in the large ballroom. Short and slight, she was wearing a high-necked dress of shining silk. Her head was thrown back and her dusky face an emblem of suffering as she sang the words:

  In parting she said:

  “Don’t you forget me in foreign lands . . .”

  “Just wait a moment,” the hostess whispered to me. “She’s almost finished.”

  And she went on standing beside me, evidently looking around for someone.

  “Now we can go.”

  She took my hand and led me across the ballroom, still looking.

  Then we entered a small, dimly lit sitting room. There was no one there. The hostess seated me on a sofa. “I’ll be back in a moment. Please don’t go anywhere.”

  She did indeed come back in a moment, together with a figure in a black mask.

  “This mysterious figure will keep you entertained,” said S——with a laugh. “Please wait for me here.”

  The black figure sat down beside me and looked silently at me through narrow eye slits.

  “You don’t know me,” it murmured at last, “but I desperately need to speak to you.”

  It was not a voice I had heard before, but something about its intonations was familiar. It was the same quivering, hysterical tone in which that lady-in-waiting had spoken of Rasputin.

  I peered at the woman sitting beside me. No, this wasn’t Madame E——. Madame E——was petite. This lady was very tall. She spoke with a faint lisp, like all of our high society ladies who as children begin speaking English before Russian.

  “I know everything,” the unknown woman began edgily. “On Thursday you’re going to a certain house.”

  “No,” I replied in surprise. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  She grew terribly flustered. “Why don’t you tell me the truth? Why? I know everything.”

  “Where is it you think I’m going?” I asked.

  “There. His place.”

  “I don’t understand a thing.”

  “Do you mean to test me? All right, I’ll say it. On Thursday you’re going to . . . to . . . Rasputin’s.”

  “What makes you think that? No one has asked me.”

  The lady fell silent.

  “You may not have received the invitation yet . . . but you soon will. It’s already been decided.”

  “But why does this matter so much to you?” I asked. “Perhaps you could tell me your name?”

  “I haven’t put on this idiotic mask only to go and tell you my name. And as far as you’re concerned, my name is of no importance. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that on Thursday you’re going to be there.”

  “I have no intention of going to Rasputin’s,” I replied calmly. “Of that I can assure you.”

  “Ah!”

  She suddenly leant forward and, with hands tightly encased in black gloves, seized hold of my arm.

  “No, you’re joking! You will be going! Why wouldn’t you?”

  “Because it’s of no interest to me.”

  “And you won’t change your mind?”

  “No.”

  Her shoulders began to tremble. I thought she was weeping.

  “I thought you were someone sincere,” she whispered.

  I was at a loss.

  “What is it you want from me? Does it upset you that I won’t be going? I don’t understand a thing.”

  She seized hold of my arm again.

  “I implore you by everything you hold sacred—please refuse the invitation. We have to get him to cancel this evening. He mustn’t leave Tsarskoye on Thursday. We mustn’t let him—or something terrible will happen.”

  She muttered something, her shoulders quivering.

  “I don’t see what any of this has to do with me,” I said. “But if it will make you feel any better, then please believe me: I give you my word of honour that I won’t go. In three days’ time I’m going to Moscow.”

  Again her shoulders began to tremble, and again I thought she was weeping.

  “Thank you, my dear one, thank you . . .”

  She quickly bent over and kissed my hand.

  Then she jumped up and left.

  “No, that can’t have been Vyrubova,” I thought, remembering how Vyrubova had wanted to see me at that party I hadn’t gone to. “No, it wasn’t her. Vyrubova is quite plump, and anyway, she limps. It wasn’t her.”

  I found our hostess.

  “Who was that masked lady you just brought to me?”

  The hostess seemed rather put out.

  “How would I know? She was wearing a mask.”

  While we were at dinner the masked figures seemed to disappear. Or perhaps they had all just taken off their fancy dress.

  I spent a long time studying the faces I didn’t know, looking for the lips that had kissed my hand . . .

  Sitting at the far end of the table were three musicians: guitar, accordion and tambourine. The very same three musicians. Rasputin’s musicians. Here was a link . . . a thread.

  12

  The next day Izmailov came over. He was terribly upset.

  “Something awful has happened. Here. Read this.” And he handed me a newspaper.

  In it I read that Rasputin had begun frequenting a literary circle where, over a bottle of wine, he would tell entertaining stories of all kinds about extremely high-ranking figures.

  “And that’s not the worst of it,” said Izmailov. “Filippov came over today and said he’d had an unexpected summons from the secret police, who wanted to know just which literary figures had been to his house and precisely what Rasputin had talked about. Filippov was threatened with exile from Petersburg. But the most astonishing and horrible thing of all is that, there on the interrogator’s desk, he could clearly see the guest list, in Manuilov’s own hand.”

  “You’re not saying Manuilov works for the secret police, are you?”[7]

  “There’s no knowing whether it was him or another of Filippov’s guests. In any case, we’ve got to be very careful. Even if they don’t interrogate us, they’ll be following us. No doubt about that. So if Rasputin writes to you or summons you by telephone, you’d better not respond. Although he doesn’t know your address, and he’s unlikely to have remembered your last name.”

  “So much for the holy man’s mystical secrets! I feel sorry for Rozanov. What a dull, prosaic ending . . .”

  13

  “Madam, some joker’s been telephoning. He’s rung twice, wanting to speak to you,” said my maid, laughing.

  “What do you mean, ‘some joker’?”

  “Well, when I ask, ‘Who’s calling?’ he says, ‘Rasputin’. It’s somebody playing the fool.”

  “Listen, Ksyusha, if this man carries on playing the fool, be sure to tell him I’ve gone away, and for a long time. Understand?”

  14

  I soon left Petersburg. I never saw Rasputin again.

  Later, when I read in the papers that his corpse had been burnt, th
e man I saw in my mind’s eye was that black, bent, terrible sorcerer:

  “Burn me? Let them. But there’s one thing they don’t know: if they kill Rasputin, it will be the end of Russia.”

  “Remember me then! Remember me!”

  I did.

  1924

  Translated by Anne Marie Jackson

  WE ARE STILL LIVING

  Everything is cold and awful. The electricity is only on for five hours a day. There’s no firewood. The buildings are barely heated. These great hulks of stone, six-storeys high, are now so icy that they seem to breathe out cold as you walk past.

  And there’s something new to be seen on the streets: the bourgeoisie are now shovelling snow and selling newspapers.

  Nothing, it seems, can unsettle these people.

  The ladies have run up special outfits for working outside: peasant-style jackets and sheepskin coats—tulups and zipuns.[1] Dressmakers call these new costumes “façon touloup and façon zipoun à la street-sweeper” and charge through the nose for them.

  Those Bolsheviks in the Smolny are a crafty lot.[2] They’ve decreed that every woman under forty must report for snow-shovelling duty. What woman is fool enough to tell the whole world she’s over forty? So far, not a single one has owned up. Instead, they’ve all been throwing themselves into the fray. It’s rumoured that many women have tried to bribe the housing committees into putting them on the roster for snow-shovelling. The committees’ response is:

  “Go on then, if you’re sure it won’t finish you off.”

  The bourgeois selling newspapers are quite happy with their lot. Most of them are ex-army officers.

  They sell the evening papers. They stand on Nevsky Prospekt and call out their wares in cheerful, ringing tones. Hearing the cry of a seasoned newspaper-seller, you turn round and, to your surprise, see the kangaroo-fur[3] collar of a former officer and find yourself looking into a pair of intelligent eyes.

  The real newspaper-sellers don’t like this: “This business isn’t for the likes of you.”

  To which the officer will reply, “And is that any business of yours?”

  These bourgeois newspaper-sellers are happy. They earn fifteen roubles a day (more than they could have earned in their wildest dreams) and what’s more, they don’t have to get up early in the morning.

  It’s good to be out on the street in the daytime. In the centre of town there is almost no robbing or looting. In shop windows you sometimes come across relics of hoary antiquity: teacups and shirt collars. Or you might catch sight of a little sign: “The latest thing—Stockings!” In bookshops you will find—(ha ha)—books and novels. There was indeed a time when people read novels about young ladies called Vera who sat around all day struggling to understand their true identities. Just look at these Veras now!

  Yes, the streets are not bad at all in the daytime. Especially if you just stand still. Walking anywhere is impossible. Even the cabmen’s horses have trouble negotiating the great blocks of ice, the mountains of snow and the quiet valleys between them. But if you just stand still, it’s really not too bad.

  “And where are you off to in such a hurry?”

  “Home.”

  “Why bother? If you go back home, you might get your throat cut.”

  They say the city will empty out soon—half the population will have left. A new decree states that all looters and criminals must leave the city immediately.

  A lot of people are jealous: all the trouble you have to go to in order to get permission to travel and now, all of a sudden, the door is wide open, if you please.

  And the government’s generosity to the looters is unlikely to stop there. Disbanding this army of bandits will take more than one day. The looters are going to need some help to obey the decree.

  First of all, the government should lay on special trains, with the time and route specified: “First Looters’ Express”; “Looters’ Train B”; “Looters’ Medical”; “Looters’ Supply Train” (because, after all, looters have to eat too); “Kislovodsk Looters’ Train”; “Deluxe Looters’ Express”. Or simplest of all, suspend all passenger and goods trains, and arrange a “Looters’ Week”.

  Otherwise nothing will come of it.

  For the time being, “due to the lack of transport”, the robbers go on robbing.

  If several robbers attack one passer-by, this is called the “socialization of capital”.[4]

  But if one person attacks several passers-by, this is ideologically unsound and is called “capitalist individualization”.[5]

  Apparently a set of rules has been published, stating which streets may be walked along at which time.

  Although, it has to be said, there are some streets that should not be walked along at any time.

  During the last pogrom,[6] a service was being held in the church on Voskresensky Prospect. As the service was ending, there was the sound of shooting out in the street. A report was sent to the Smolny, following which a guard was dispatched to escort the congregation and the clergy back to their homes.

  I don’t imagine that the clergy felt entirely comfortable to be availing themselves of the services of the Bolsheviks.

  “If you would be so good as to accompany me home, dear brother-anathema.”[7]

  Each member of the clergy was seen to his door by four anathemas.

  For some time now there’s been no shooting at all. It’s very quiet. This unaccustomed silence makes our ears ring.

  It’s dark. And it’s cold.

  “It’s a dog’s life, my dear chap,” I heard a man on the tram complaining. His ears were stuffed with cotton wool. “A dog’s life. You run around all day like a dog, sniffing about for a bone. You grab your bone and drag it home. You snarl at anyone who tries to take it. You gnaw at it, wrap the leftovers in some rags and bury them, just like a dog, so no one can take them. And then again, at night, you sit at your gate like a dog, guarding your house—that is, if you still have bread in the house to guard: the third of an ounce that remains from your four-ounce ration of bread made from straw.”[8]

  Not long ago, a man got a splinter in his tongue from the bread. His tongue swelled up and he died. People had a good laugh. And he chose the wrong time, too. The very next day he could have got an egg on his ration card.

  All that was a long time ago, needless to say. About ten days ago. Now it sounds like some fairy story.

  The only people who can get eggs now are children. Four children are entitled to one egg between them, once a year.

  That’s how we live. A lot of people are starting to think that we aren’t living, but quite simply dying. But then, when people are very hungry and very cold, and unhappy into the bargain, it’s probably all too easy for them to imagine they’re dying.

  On the other hand . . .

  Dear God, if it’s all the same to you, let us die a warm death.

  Written in 1918, but published only posthumously

  Translated by Rose France

  THE GADARENE SWINE

  There are not many of them, of these refugees from Sovietdom. A small group of people with nothing in common; a small motley herd huddled by the cliff’s edge before the final leap. Creatures of different breeds and with coats of different colours, entirely alien to one another, with natures that have perhaps always been mutually antagonistic, they have wandered off together and collectively refer to themselves as “we”. They have wandered off for no purpose, for no reason. Why?

  The legend of the country of the Gadarenes comes to mind. Men possessed by demons came out from among the tombs, and Christ healed them by driving the demons into a herd of swine, and the swine plunged from a cliff and drowned.

  Herds of a single animal are rare in the East. More often they are mixed. And in the herd of Gadarene swine there were evidently some meek, frightened sheep. Seeing the crazed swine hurtling along, these sheep took to their heels too.

  “Is that our lot?”

  “Yes, they’re running for it!”

  And th
e meek sheep plunged down after the swine and they all perished together.

  Had dialogue been possible in the course of this mad dash, it might have resembled what we’ve been hearing so often in recent days:

  “Why are we running?” ask the meek.

  “Everyone’s running.”

  “Where are we running to?”

  “Wherever everyone else is running.”

  “What are we doing with them? They’re not our kind of people. We shouldn’t be here with them. Maybe we ought to have stayed where we were. Where the men possessed by demons were coming out from the tombs. What are we doing? We’ve lost our way, we don’t know what we’re . . .”

  But the swine running alongside them know very well what they’re doing. They egg the meek on, grunting “Culture! We’re running towards culture! We’ve got money sewn into the soles of our shoes. We’ve got diamonds stuck up our noses. Culture! Culture! Yes, we must save our culture!”

  They hurtle on. Still on the run, they speculate. They buy up, they buy back, they sell on. They peddle rumours. The fleshy disc at the end of a pig’s snout may only look like a five-kopek coin, but the swine are selling them now for a hundred roubles.

  “Culture! We’re saving culture! For the sake of culture!”

  “How very strange!” say the meek. “ ‘Culture’ is our kind of word. It’s a word we use ourselves. But now it sounds all wrong. Who is it you’re running away from?”

  “The Bolsheviks.”

  “How very strange!” the meek say sadly. “Because we’re running away from the Bolsheviks, too.”

  If the swine are fleeing the Bolsheviks, then it seems that the meek should have stayed behind.

  But they’re in headlong flight. There’s no time to think anything through.

  They are indeed all running away from the Bolsheviks. But the crazed swine are escaping from Bolshevik truth, from socialist principles, from equality and justice, while the meek and frightened are escaping from untruth, from Bolshevism’s black reality, from terror, injustice and violence.