Dedalus Book of Russian Decadence

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

  I, too, don’t think about death at all; I just live my life. But when I remember the past, I remember how I used to be a man. I even recall precisely when this metamorphosis of mine (of ours) began. Yes, yes, it was when those “years of transformation” were ending. They were coming to an end, but the metamorphosis was beginning; it was then, after all, that the first rivulets of poison gas seeped into the air. I never used to like to think about those years, about the time when I was still a man, but now that I’ve understood and submitted to my ant-hood, there’s no harm in remembering.

  I’m too indifferent to believe in the possibility of being saved—of change. After all, what force of breath is needed to blow away those heavy vapours saturated with poison; for they’ve penetrated right to this earth of ours—they’re close in and clinging tight. It would take God’s breath to blow them away, sweep them away, rid the lifeless, silenced earth of them … God’s breath.

  I’m not thinking about killing myself. After all, there’s nothing wrong with my life. However, just in case, so as not to go to a lot of trouble later, I got my dusty box of photographic equipment out from under the bed and found my jar of almond-white crystals.

  I have a little box full of capsules of pyramidon: I take it when I have a headache. So this is what I decided to do: open up one capsule, dump out the pyramidon, and fill it with that … with the white stuff, once I’d prepared the crystals by grinding them up in a mortar. Then I put the capsule back together. I inked a cross on it and put it aside, so that I couldn’t possibly take it by accident. God preserve me. I’m not about to poison myself, much less by accident.

  Outside the house, by the way, it’s getting close to freezing … I just don’t know how I am going to survive the next thaw. It’s too much for my ant strength. It would be good if we didn’t have another thaw. But what if there is one? In December? In January?

  Well, if there is, then it’s the capsule with the black cross. “Just fine …” and it doesn’t even hurt.

  My dear sisters Katy, Darla, Barb and the others, cooks, prostitutes, students, brides, lovers, mothers and old maids—and dear brothers, colonels, mechanics, workers, bailiffs, students, revolutionaries, jurists, editors, schoolboys, and you, plasterers with your rouble, and rebels, and expropriators, and governors—all you who have been killed and who have killed yourselves, all you hanged, drowned, poisoned, knifed and blown up brothers of mine, dead shades—wait for me! I’m yours, I’m like you. A rotten wind will blow from the rotten sea, brown St. Petersburg mud will start squelching under my weak ant legs, and they will get twisted together, and I will fall and crumple up, just like you.

  Good-bye, my dears … until the next thaw.

  1 Prostitutes plied their trade on St. Petersburg’s Ligovka Street, which was populated with a variety of other shady characters and businesses as well .

  2 A peaked uniform cap, the kartuz was typically worn by men involved in illegal businesses such as prostitution. The word kartuznik came to mean not so much “a man wearing a kartuz” as “a man involved in illicit business”.

  3 In the turbulent years immediately after the 1905 revolution, during which this story takes place, military tribunals could sentence anyone convicted of any crime (here, burglary is implied) to hanging.

  4 The revolutionary years of 1905–1907.

  5 The narrator is referring to an event that was well-known at the time as the “Story of a Lost Boot.” Two poets (both of them certainly better than the narrator ranks them), Nikolai Gumilev and Maximilian Voloshin, in fact had a duel that ended with no loss of life, but the loss of a boot.

  To the window of my cell

  At the end of evil day

  Exultant birds came

  And looked in on me.

  But the gloom of my cell

  Frightened them away,

  And the exultant birds took flight

  Back to the azure heights.

  Fyodor Sologub, 1887

  Song

  Above the earth my window is so high,

  So high.

  I see only the sunset in the sky,

  In the sky.

  And the sky seems so vacant and so dull,

  So vacant and dull…

  My poor heart it pities not at all,

  Not at all.

  Alas, I am dying of desperate grief,

  Desperate grief,

  I do not know what it is that I seek,

  What I seek…

  And I do not know from whence this yearning came,

  From whence it came,

  But my heart longs to be miraculously saved,

  Miraculously saved!

  Oh, may something great happen, something new come to be,

  Come to be:

  Something wondrous the pale sky promises me,

  Promises me,

  But I weep without tears: I don’t trust its word,

  Don’t trust its word…

  What I long for so deeply is not of this world,

  Not of this world.

  Zinaida Gippius, 1893

  The Last

  Happy about everything, like children, at times

  People easily live their merry lives.

  Oh, let them laugh! There is no joy

  In looking into my weary soul’s night.

  I will not disturb their momentary joy.

  I will not open the gates of consciousness for them,

  And now, in my resigned pride,

  I will take the vow of great silence.

  Wordlessly I pass by, I pass by,

  Covering my face, into unknown distances,

  Towards which I am led inexorably

  By cruel and audacious sadnesses.

  Zinaida Gippius, 1900

  The Abyss

  Leonid Andreyev

  I

  The day was already ending, but the two of them just kept walking and talking, not noticing either the time or the way they were going. On the gentle rise ahead a small grove stood dark against the sky, and through the branches of the trees the sun glowed like red-hot coals, lighting up the air and turning it all into fiery golden dust. So close and bright was the sun that everything else seemed to disappear, and it alone remained, colouring the road and levelling it. It hurt their eyes; they turned back and immediately before them everything dimmed, becoming calm and clear, small and distinct. Somewhere far off, a mile or more away, the red sunset caught the tall trunk of a pine, and the pine flamed amidst the foliage like a candle in a dark room; ahead a crimson patina lay over the road, where each stone cast a long, black shadow, while the girl’s hair, permeated with the sun’s rays, shone like a golden-red halo. One fine curly hair separated from the rest and curled and waved in the air like golden gossamer.

  Though it had become dark ahead of them, their conversation didn’t break off or change. Just as serene, intimate and quiet as before, it kept flowing gently along, about one thing only: the power, beauty and immortality of love. They were both very young—the girl barely seventeen years old, Nemovetsky four years older—and both wore school uniforms—she, the modest brown dress of a high school girl; he, the handsome uniform of a technical school student. And like their speech, everything about them was young, beautiful and pure: their slender, lithe figures, airily light, their sprightly step and their fresh voices, conveying thoughtful tenderness even in the simplest words, like the splashing of a brook on a quiet spring night when all the snow has not yet melted off the dark fields.

  On they went, turning where the unfamiliar road turned, and two long, gradually tapering shadows, odd-looking with their tiny heads, would at times move ahead separately from one another, at others blend together on one side into a single long, narrow band, like the shadow of a poplar. But they talked on, unaware of the shadows, and as they talked he never took his eyes off her lovely face, upon which it seemed the rosy sunset had left some of its tender colours, while she looked down at the path, flicking little pebbles away with her parasol and watching how,
from beneath her dark dress, first one, then the other pointed toe of each little shoe regularly appeared.

  Cutting across the road was a ditch, its sides dusty and caving in where people had crossed, and they stopped for a moment. Zinochka lifted her head, gazed around in bemusement, and asked, “Do you know where we are? I have never been here.”

  He gave a cursory glance around. “Yes, I do. The town is there, behind that hillock. Give me your hand, I’ll help you.”

  He held out his hand—not a rough worker’s hand, but slender and white like a woman’s. Zinochka felt happy; she wanted to jump the ditch by herself and run ahead, shouting, “Catch me!”—but she restrained herself, and with solemn gratitude she bowed her head slightly and somewhat timidly extended her hand, which was still soft and plump, like a child’s. And he ached to press that sweet, timid hand, but he, too, restrained himself, and with a half-bow he took it courteously and turned away modestly when, as she crossed, her ankle was slightly revealed.

  And once again they walked and talked, but they were still full of the feeling of how their two hands had briefly touched. She still felt the dry heat of his palm and strong fingers; it made her feel good and a bit guilty; and he sensed the submissive softness of her tiny little hand and saw the black silhouette of her foot in the naïve and tender embrace of its dear shoe. And there was something poignant and troubling in this persistent image of a narrow band of white skirts and her slim foot, and with an unconscious effort of will he put it out of his mind. And then he felt happy and his heart was so expansive and free in his breast that he wanted to sing, reaching his arms to the sky and shouting,‘’Run, and I’ll catch up with you!”—that ancient formula of first love amidst forests and roaring waterfalls.

  And because of all these desires, a lump rose in his throat.

  The long, odd-looking shadows were disappearing, and the dust on the road was now grey and cold, but they didn’t notice and kept on talking. Both of them had read a number of good books, and the wonderful images of people who had loved, suffered and perished for pure love floated before their eyes. They began to recollect snatches of poetry they had read ages ago, poetry that cloaked love in garments of resonant harmony and sweet sadness.

  “Do you remember where this is from?” asked Nemovetsky, quoting from memory: “… and with me again is the one I love, from whom I hid, wordlessly, all my anguish, all my tenderness, all my love…”

  “No,” answered Zinochka and repeated pensively, “all my anguish, all my tenderness, all my love…”

  “All my love,” echoed Nemovetsky involuntarily.

  And then they reminisced some more. They remembered girls pure as white lilies who donned the black garb of the cloisters, girls languishing by themselves in a park sprinkled with autumn leaves, girls happy in their unhappiness; and they recalled men—proud, energetic, but suffering and in need of love and a woman’s sympathetic compassion. The images they summoned were sad, but in their sadness the love was all the more bright and pure. Before their eyes it grew enormous like the world, bright like the sun and extraordinarily beautiful, and there was nothing more powerful, or more splendid.

  “Could you die for the one you love?” asked Zinochka, looking down at her own childlike hand.

  “Yes, I could,” answered Nemovetsky decisively, gazing at her frankly and sincerely. “And you?”

  “Yes, I could, too.” She thought a bit. “Wouldn’t it be such happiness, to die for your beloved? I really would want to.”

  Their eyes met, bright and calm, and something good passed between them, and their lips smiled. Zinochka stopped walking.

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “You have a thread on your jacket.”

  And trustingly she lifted her hand to his shoulder and carefully, with two fingers, removed the thread.

  “There!” she said, and becoming serious, asked, “Why are you so pale and thin? Is it from all that studying? You mustn’t wear yourself out, really you mustn’t.”

  “Your eyes are blue, with light flecks in them, like little sparks,” he answered, looking searchingly into her eyes.

  “And yours are black. No, brown, and warm. And there are…”

  Zinochka didn’t finish her sentence about what was there, and turned away. Her face slowly flushed, her eyes became embarrassed and shy, but her lips smiled involuntarily. And not waiting for the smiling Nemovetsky, who looked delighted, she started ahead, but soon came to a halt.

  “Look, the sun has set!” she cried with sorrowful surprise.

  “Yes, it’s set,” he responded with sudden, sharp grief.

  The light was gone, the shadows had died, and everything around was now pale, mute and lifeless. From the place where the incandescent sun had glittered, now, without a sound, dark heaps of clouds had begun to climb, and little by little they were devouring the light-blue space. Heavy storm clouds swirled and bumped into each other; slowly and gravely the contours of wakened monsters changed and reluctantly moved ahead, as if they were being driven against their will by some inexorable, terrible force. Tearing itself away from the others, a light, fluffy little cloud rushed on alone, weak and frightened.

  II

  Zinochka’s cheeks paled, her lips turned red, almost bloody, her pupils enlarged imperceptibly, darkening her eyes, and she whispered quietly, “I’m frightened. It’s so quiet here. Are we lost?”

  Nemovetsky knit his thick brows and looked searchingly around.

  Without the sun, in the cool breath of approaching night, the place seemed unwelcoming and cold; grey fields stretched out in all directions, with stubbly, trampled-looking grass, clay gullies, hillocks and pits. There were a lot of pits, deep and sheer ones as well as small ones, overgrown with creeping weeds; a taciturn fog had already settled noiselessly for the night; and the fact that people had once been here, that they had done something or other and were now gone, made the place seem even more uninhabited and sad. Here and there, like clots of cold, lilac fog, stood groves and scattered bushes, as if waiting for some kind of word from the abandoned pits.

  Nemovetsky suppressed a heavy, troubling feeling of anxiety and said, “No, we’re not lost. I know the way. First across the field and then through that little wood. Are you afraid?”

  She smiled bravely and answered, “No. Now I’m not. But we’d better get home soon—for tea.”

  Quickly and resolutely they moved forward, but soon slowed their steps. They did not look around, but felt an enormous enmity from the pockmarked field that surrounded them with a thousand dull, unmoving eyes, and this feeling brought them closer to one another and roused memories of childhood. And the memories were wonderful, lit by the sun, by green leaves, by love and laughter. As if this were not life, but an expansive, gentle song, and they themselves were its sounds, two small, sweet notes—one resonant and pure, like vibrating crystal, the other a little deeper, but clearer, like a sleigh-bell.

  People appeared: two women sitting on the edge of a deep clay pit. One sat cross-legged, staring fixedly into the pit. Her kerchief had lifted up a bit, revealing dishevelled tangles of hair, and her back was hunched, pulling up her dirty, frayed sweater patterned with flowers as big as apples. She didn’t even glance at the passers-by. The other woman reclined alongside, her head thrown back. Her face was coarse and broad, with masculine features, and under her eyes on her jutting cheekbones two brick-red spots burned, looking like fresh grazes. She was even dirtier than the first woman, and looked openly at them as they went by. When they had passed, she began to sing in a thick, masculine voice:

  For you alone, my dear,

  Like a fragrant flower I bloomed…

  “Varka, d’ya hear?” she turned to her taciturn friend, and receiving no answer, burst into loud, coarse laughter.

  Nemovetsky knew this kind of woman, dirty even when wearing rich, beautiful dresses; he was used to them, and now they passed in and out of his view without leaving a trace. But Zinochka, who had almost brushed against them with her modest br
own dress, felt something hostile, pathetic and angry momentarily entering her heart. But a few moments later the impression softened, like a cloud’s shadow quickly scudding across a golden meadow, and when two more people caught up and passed them—a man in a cap and jacket, but barefoot, and one of those dirty women—she saw them, but felt nothing. Unthinkingly, she watched the woman for quite a while, and was a bit surprised that she had on such a thin dress, and at the way it clung to her legs as if wet, and at the hem with its broad band of greasy dirt that had eaten into the material. There was something disquieting, painful and terrifyingly hopeless in the fluttering of that thin and filthy hem.

  And once again they walked and talked; behind them, reluctantly, a dark storm cloud moved and cast a transparent shadow that cautiously fitted itself to the landscape. Yellowish-bronze stains shone dully through the cloud’s bursting sides, and then hid behind its heavy mass, leaving bright, noiselessly swirling tracks behind. And the darkness was thickening so stealthily and imperceptibly that it was difficult to believe it was there, and it seemed that it was still day, but a day that was gravely ill and quietly dying. Now they were talking about the unsettling feelings and thoughts that visit a person at night when he lies awake, and neither sounds nor speech disturb him, and the broad and many-eyed darkness that is life presses hard up to his face.

  “Do you have any idea what infinity is like?” asked Zinochka, pressing her plump hand to her forehead and squeezing her eyes tight shut.

  “No. Infinity … No,” answered Nemovetsky, closing his eyes too.

  “I can sometimes see it. The first time I saw it was when I was still little. It’s something like a cart. There’s one cart, then another, a third and so on, into the distance, forever, just carts and carts … Terrifying.” She shuddered.