Dedalus Book of Russian Decadence

by Lodge, Kirsten; Rosen, Margo Shohl; Dashevsky, Grigory

  Kolya was silent, and his thoughts turned to Mama.

  Mama loved Kolya; she was tender and light-hearted. But she had her own life. She loved to be with the lively young people who often came to their house, laughed, had spirited, jocular conversations, treated Kolya affectionately, sometimes made gentle fun of him … Kolya didn’t find them boring, he himself was lively, talkative and trusting—but they were different and distant from him, and seemed to draw Mama away from him.

  “Anyhow, the fish aren’t biting,” said Vanya. “And it’s time to go home. Come to the edge of the forest this evening.”

  “All right,” said Kolya.

  II

  The boys carried their buckets and fishing rods home.

  They walked along the road that led right through the village. The cottages pressed against each other and seemed poor and dilapidated. From beyond them came the sound of the river. Peasant children, dishevelled and dirty, were playing near the houses, swearing at one another with crude, horrible words, and crying. Their hands and feet—usually so beautiful in children—were a pathetic and disgusting sight, they were so dirty.

  At one of the cottages an inquisitive gentleman, dressed in a dark-blue shirt beneath a frockcoat and high boots, was sitting on a bench. He asked questions of everyone who passed by.

  “Catch anything?” he asked Kolya.

  Kolya trustingly showed him the little fish in his tin bucket.

  “Not much,” said the gentleman. “Where do you live, then?”

  “Over there on the hill, Yefim Gorbachev’s cottage,” said Kolya.

  “Oh, that’s Yefishka Gorbachev!” said the gentleman.

  Kolya laughed.

  “Do you live with your father?” asked the inquisitive gentleman.

  “No, with my Mama,” answered Kolya. “My papa is at sea. He’s a naval officer.”

  “And does your Mama miss him?” inquired the man.

  Kolya looked at him in surprise, and thought for a moment. “Mama?” he said slowly. “No, she’s acting. Soon there’s going to be a play here, and she’s got a part in it.”

  Meanwhile Vanya had gone on a little way and then returned. “Come on, then, are we going?” he said to Kolya, darting angry glances at the curious gentleman.

  The boys moved off. Gesturing with strange motions of his shoulders and elbows behind them, towards the inquisitive gentleman, Vanya said, “That man asks everyone questions—he’s a proper bastard. About your parents, about everything—he probably writes for the papers. I told him a couple of good fibs.”

  Again the amber sparks blazed in Vanya’s transparent, sharp eyes.

  “You di-i-id?” Kolya giggled as he drew out the word.

  “I told him that my father worked as a detective,” Vanya recounted. “Now he’s really afraid of me!”

  “Why?” asked Kolya.

  “I told him that my father is investigating a certain swindler in these parts, and so he’s scared.”

  “But he’s not really a swindler, is he?” Kolya asked with a giggle.

  “But I told him a description that sounds like him,” explained Vanya, “and so now he’s scared.”

  The boys laughed.

  They came to Vanya’s cottage and began to say good-bye.

  Vanya’s mother was standing in the garden, hands on her hips, smoking. She was tall, fat and red, and she always wore a dull, pompous expression on her face—the kind that habitual smokers often have. Kolya was afraid of Vanya’s mother.

  She looked severely at Kolya, and Kolya felt uneasy.

  “Tonight, then,” said Vanya.

  Kolya set off for home at a good clip.

  “Friends!” Vanya’s mother said angrily. “I’d give it good to both of you…”

  There was no reason whatsoever to be angry; she was simply in the habit of being angry and scolding.

  III

  After dinner the boys met up again—on the main road, where it entered the forest.

  “Tell you what,” said Vanya, “there’s a little place I have to show you.”

  Kolya’s trusting eyes suddenly lit up with curiosity. “Show me,” he blurted out rapturously, already looking forward to something mysterious and unusual.

  “I know this place where no one will find us,” said Vanya.

  “But we won’t get lost, will we?” asked Kolya.

  Vanya looked at him contemptuously. “If you’re afraid, don’t come,” he said scornfully.

  Kolya flushed. “I’m not afraid,” he said in an offended tone. “It’s just that if it takes long to get there, we’ll get really famished.”

  “We won’t get hungry, it’s not very far,” Vanya said firmly.

  The boys trotted off into the forest thicket.

  It quickly became dark and wild around them. It got quiet and frightening…

  Straight in front of them was the brink of a wide, deep ravine. The gurgling of a stream at the bottom was audible, but from the top the stream couldn’t be seen through the thicket, and it seemed impossible to find a way through. But the boys began to climb down towards the stream. They descended, clinging to branches and at times skittering down the steep slope. Branches grazed them and whipped them in the face. Thick, strong bushes had to be pushed aside with some effort. There were a lot of dry, prickly twigs, and as they went down it was hard to keep from scraping their faces and arms. Sometimes a cobweb, thick and extraordinarily sticky, would cling to them.

  “Any minute you could fall and break something!” said Kolya fearfully.

  “Don’t worry!” Vanya shouted. “It’s not that bad.”

  He was far ahead, and Kolya was only barely inching down.

  The lower they went, the damper it became. Kolya felt annoyed and unhappy that his yellow shoes were full of wet clay, and that his arms were all smeared with clay as well.

  Finally they got all the way down to a narrow, dark hollow at the bottom. The stream splashed against the rocks, purling with a gentle music. It was damp, but nice. It seemed that people, the sky—everything was high, high up, and that no one would come here, no one would see…

  Kolya, twisting around, looked with chagrin at his trousers. They were torn. Kolya was vexed. “What will Mama say?” he thought worriedly.

  “It’s not a calamity,” said Vanya.

  “But they’re my new trousers,” Kolya mournfully replied.

  Vanya laughed. “My clothes are all patched already,” he said. “They don’t let me wear good things here. It’s the forest, brother, not a sitting room. You don’t wear new things here.”

  Kolya sighed and thought, “At least I’ll wash my hands.” But no matter how much he splashed the cold water on them, they remained red from the clay.

  “That clay’s really sticky,” Vanya remarked carelessly. He took off his shoes, sat on a rock and dabbled his feet in the water. “Tore your clothes, got muddy, scratched your arms and legs,” he said. “That’s it, brother, it’s not so bad. And here you don’t have to take orders from anyone—you can do whatever you want.”

  And then, after a little silence, he suddenly said with a smile, “Flying here, that’d be the way.”

  “Too bad we’re not sparrows,” Kolya said with alacrity.

  “We will—we’ll fly,” Vanya said with an odd certainty in his voice.

  “But that’s impossible!” Kolya protested mistrustfully.

  “Lately I’ve been flying every night,” Vanya told him, “almost every night. The moment I lie down, I take off. But I can’t do it yet in the daytime. Maybe I’m scared? I’m not sure.” He sank into thought.

  “We don’t have wings,” said Kolya.

  “What do we need wings for?! It’s not a matter of wings,” answered Vanya, deep in thought as he gazed unblinkingly at the stream of water at his feet.

  “What, then?” asked Kolya.

  Vanya fixed Kolya with a long, malicious, transparent gaze, and said quietly, “You won’t get it.” He gave a ringing laugh like a mermaid,
and started grimacing and twitching.

  “Why are you making such faces?” Kolya asked shyly.

  “What of it? Is there something wrong with it?” Vanya retorted dismissively.

  “It scares me a bit,” said Kolya with his sour smile.

  Vanya stopped making faces, sat down quietly, and looked thoughtfully at the forest, the water and the sky. “There’s nothing to be scared of,” he said quietly. “People used to believe in devils and demons. But now, brother, there’s no such thing. There’s nothing to be scared of,” he repeated quietly, and then he went on in a barely audible whisper, “except man.” He whispered the saying he had often heard from his father: “Man is a wolf to man.”

  IV

  With a chuckle, Vanya took an open pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “Let’s have a smoke,” he said.

  “Oh, no, how can you?” Kolya said in horror.

  Vanya sighed and said, “We’re all of us—children—too used to being obedient—we got it from our fathers. Grown-ups obey like mad—whatever their boss says, they do. Now, womenfolk, though, they’re more headstrong.”

  And after a silence, he said in a derisive and persuading tone, “Hey, you’re a fine one—don’t want to smoke. You like pretty flowers, grass and little leaves, don’t you?” Vanya asked.

  “Yes,” Kolya said uncertainly.

  “Well, that’s all tobacco is—a kind of grass.” Vanya looked at Kolya with his transparent mermaid’s eyes, and, with a chuckle, held out the cigarette again.

  “Take it,” he said.

  Captivated by the transparent gleam of Vanya’s eyes, Kolya indecisively reached out for the cigarette.

  “That’s it,” Vanya said encouragingly. “Just try it. You’ll see for yourself how good it is.”

  He lit up both his own and Kolya’s cigarette—the matches came from one of his deep pockets, among all kinds of junk and rubbish. The boys began to smoke—Vanya like a habitual smoker, Kolya with a worried face. And he choked right away, on the first puff. A fiery cloud filled his throat and chest, and in the smoke fiery sparks whirled before his eyes. He threw down the cigarette.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” said Vanya.

  “It’s bitter,” said Kolya in a dismayed whisper, “I can’t.”

  “You’re such a baby,” said Vanya scornfully. “Just smoke one little fag—a little at a time, don’t take deep puffs, then you’ll get used to it.”

  Kolya, against his will, almost lifeless, put the cigarette in his mouth. He sat on the ground, his back against a tree, pale, with tears in his eyes, and smoked—and felt dizzy. He barely managed to finish. His head started to hurt, and he felt nauseous. He lay down on the ground, and the trees swayed slowly and gracefully above him, in a circular, tedious motion…

  Vanya was saying something. His words barely registered in Kolya’s dimmed consciousness. “When you’re alone now and then, you can make it really nice for yourself,” said Vanya.

  “What do you mean?” asked Kolya in a weak voice.

  “You start by imagining … Nah, you won’t get it … I’ll tell you later … Just come and visit me here. Really, let’s start meeting here,” Vanya entreated.

  Kolya wanted to decline, but couldn’t. “All right,” he said weakly.

  V

  At home, a worried Kolya showed Mama his torn trousers. Mama laughed when she looked at his mournful face. She was feeling happy that day because she had been given the part she dreamt of playing in the amateur play.

  “From now on, be more careful,” she said to Kolya. “Just look at your new clothes!”

  Kolya smiled a guilty smile, and Mama immediately guessed that there was something else on his conscience. Mama took his chin in her hand and tilted his face upwards. “Now why are you so pale?” she asked.

  Kolya flushed and lowered his head, freeing himself with difficulty from Mama’s grasp.

  “Now then, what’s this about?” Mama said severely, and bent down to him.

  Kolya smelt of tobacco.

  “Kolya!” Mama cried angrily. “What is this, you smell like cigarettes! A little early for that, isn’t it, sweetheart?”

  Kolya started to cry. “It was only one cigarette,” he confessed in a guilty, wavering tone.

  Mama was amused and at the same time vexed. “What are you carrying on with that awful Vanyushka for? He’s a nasty boy, a green frog,” she said angrily.

  “I won’t smoke anymore,” Kolya said between sobs, “but his father lets him.”

  “Well, that’s just wonderful,” Mama said indignantly.

  “He’s a good boy, really, and anyway what’s wrong with it if they let him?” Kolya persisted.

  “Hmph! My young smoker,” said Mama. “Don’t let it happen again, you hear me?”

  VI

  That night Kolya dreamt of a crow. A repulsive, frightening one. He woke up. It was still night—a half-lit, northern night.

  Then Kolya dreamt of Vanya and his clear eyes. Vanya stared intently and said something indistinct. Kolya’s heart started pounding, and he woke up.

  Then Kolya dreamt that he got out of bed and was flying near the ceiling. His heart was quailing. It was terrifying and exhilarating. His body floated effortlessly. He was scared he might crash into the wall above the door. But all went well—Kolya flew down in the right place, and in the next room he again floated up under the dark, twilit ceiling. There were a lot of rooms, each with a higher ceiling than the last, and his flight through them grew faster and faster and more and more terrifying. Finally he flew out of a high, dark window that opened noiselessly before him into the open air, climbed high up into the sky, and circling languidly and delightfully in its deep, sun-filled heights, all of a sudden stopped, fell and woke up.

  VII

  The next day Kolya, against his better judgment, found himself in the same ravine. He didn’t want to go. But he went, as if by habit.

  And there, far from people, they talked…

  “You were saying yesterday …” Kolya began uncertainly.

  “What?” Vanya asked angrily, and his body jerked all over.

  “About what you imagine,” Kolya said shyly.

  “Oh, so tha-at’s it,” Vanya drew out the words. He sat down quietly on a rock, clasped his arms about his knees, and gazed fixedly off into the distance. And Kolya asked him again, “What is it you imagine?”

  Vanya was silent for a bit, gave a sigh and turned to Kolya, looked him over with a strange smile, and said, “Well, a lot of things. The best is when it’s about something shameful. No matter how they offend you,” said Vanya, “no matter how angry you are, just wind up your hurdy-gurdy, and you forget all the bad things.”

  “Your hurdy-gurdy?” Kolya repeated.

  “That’s what I call it, winding up your hurdy-gurdy,” explained Vanya. “It’s too bad, though, that it doesn’t play for long.”

  “Not long?” Kolya repeated again with sympathetic inquisitiveness.

  “It’s tiring,” said Vanya. He suddenly seemed to deflate, and stared ahead with weary, sleep-filled eyes.

  “So anyway, what do you imagine?” insisted Kolya.

  Vanya smiled crookedly and twitched his shoulders…

  And so, far away from people, they talked about strange fantasies, about atrocious and torrid things…

  And their faces flamed…

  Vanya was silent for a bit and then began to talk about something else. “One time I didn’t eat anything for three whole days,” he said. “My father thrashed me for no reason at all, and I got really angry. Just you wait, I thought to myself, I’ll give you a good scare. So I stopped eating.”

  “You really did?” Kolya asked, his trusting eyes wide. “So, and what happened?”

  “My guts twisted from hunger,” Vanya told him. “At home everyone was scared. They gave me another thrashing.”

  “And then what?” Kolya asked.

  Vanya frowned and tightened his fist. “I didn’t hold out,” he said sullen
ly. “Stuffed myself. I’d got so weak from hunger. I went at my food like … They say you can live for three weeks without eating, if you only drink water. But without water you turn up your toes in no time. You know what? Let’s not eat anything tomorrow,” Vanya said quickly.

  And he stared fixedly at Kolya with his transparent, bright eyes.

  “All right,” Kolya said weakly, in a strange-sounding voice.

  “And mind, no tricks now.”

  “Of course not.”

  It smelt warmly of moss and ferns, and resinous pine needles. Kolya’s head was swimming a little, and he was overcome by a languid weakness of will. Mama suddenly came to mind, but she seemed far, far away, and Kolya thought about her with indifference, without that surge of tender feelings that thoughts of Mama had always provoked in him.

  “My mother will get angry. She’ll get red in the face,” Vanya said calmly, “but if it gets really bad, I’ll just run off to the forest.”

  And suddenly, in a completely different, lively and cheerful tone, he said, “Let’s ford the stream here. The water’s nice and cool.”

  VIII

  Vanya’s father, Ivan Petrovich Zelenev, a lawyer by training and a swine by nature, worked in the Ministry, riding to work every day on the morning train and returning towards evening, often a bit tipsy. He was a red-haired, stout, cheerful and worthless man. Both his thought and his words were vulgar in the highest degree—as if he lacked character, as if there were nothing in him that was real and true. In conversation, he would wink at the other person for no apparent reason, often in the most inexpressive places. He would croon fashionable songs from operas out of tune. He wore a ring with a fake stone, and a necktie studded with a paste-jewel tiepin. He gave himself out to be a lover of freedom, and he liked to repeat bold phrases and criticise the government. At work, on the other hand, he was diligent, ingratiating and even rather base.

  They were having supper late. Zelenev was drinking beer with his supper. He gave some to Vanya, too. Vanya drank it like an adult.