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Russian Erotic Prose of the First Half of the Twentieth Century Russian History and Culture

Russian Erotic Prose of the First Half of the Twentieth Century Russian History and Culture

The Birth of the Body: Russian Erotic Prose of the First Half of the Twentieth Century Russian History and Culture

Editors-in-Chief Jeffrey P. Brooks The Johns Hopkins University Christina Lodder University of Edinburgh

VOLUME 12

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/rhc The Birth of the Body: Russian Erotic Prose of the First Half of the Twentieth Century

A Reader

Translated and edited by Alexei Lalo

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2013 This publication was effected under the auspices of the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation TRANSCRIPT Programme to Support Translations of Russian Literature.

Cover illustration: drawing of nude woman by Leon Bakst, 1905.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The birth of the body : Russian erotic prose of the first half of the twentieth century : a reader / translated and edited by Alexei Lalo. pages ; cm. — (Russian history and culture ; volume 12) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-90-04-23775-9 (hardback : alkaline paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-24206-7 (e-book) 1. Erotic literature, Russian—20th century—Translations into English. I. Lalo, Alexei, translator, editor. II. Series: Russian history and culture (Leiden, Netherlands) ; v. 12. PG3276.B57 2013 891.708’03538—dc23 2012031963

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ISSN 1877-7791 ISBN 978-90-04-23775-9 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-24206-7 (e-book)

Copyright 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.

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This book is printed on acid-free paper. CONTENTS

List of Illustrations ...... vii Acknowledgments ...... ix Translator and Editor’s Foreword ...... xi

PART One EROTIC SILVER AGE (1900–1922)

Vasilii Rozanov, Selected Excerpts ...... 3

Leonid Andreyev, In the Fog ...... 15

Aleksandr Kuprin, Seasickness ...... 45

Fyodor Sologub, The Tsarina of Kisses ...... 69

PART TWO INHERITING SILVER AGE IN ÉMIGRÉ WRITING

Vladislav Khodasevich, About Pornography ...... 79

Georgii Ivanov, The Decay of the Atom ...... 85

PART THREE EARLY SOVIET EROTIC FICTION

Panteleymon Romanov, Without Bird Cherry ...... 111

Vikentii Veresaev, Isanka ...... 123

Recommended Further Reading ...... 153

List of Illustrations

1. Vasilii Rozanov ...... 3 2. Leonid Andreyev ...... 15 3. Aleksandr Kuprin ...... 45 4. Fyodor Sologub ...... 69 5. Vladislav Khodasevich ...... 79 6. Georgii Ivanov ...... 85 7. Vikentii Veresaev ...... 123

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Katherine Arens, Stephen and Sandra Batalden, as well as Jeremiah Meagher, for their generous help in working on these translations. Nikolai Shchitov has been helping me in my work on sexualities for many years. Mark Leiderman offered his invaluable pieces of advice in the early stages of the project. Ivo Romein, of Brill Publishers, has been helpful and supportive over several years; without him, this anthology would not materialize. Last but not least, special thanks go to the Mikhail Prokhorov Founda- tion for supporting the translation of these important texts, most of which were previously unavailable in English.

AL Tempe, AZ May 2012

Translator and Editor’s Foreword

This concise, 8-author, reader/anthology of Russian and Soviet erotic prose written roughly between 1900 and 1940 consists of three parts, or chapters: Silver Age writings, interwar émigré literature, and early Soviet fiction. It was not my intention to offer an exhaustive encyclopedia of sex-related Russian literature of the period, nor did I purport to select the most accomplished works dedicated to the theme of sexuality and eroticism. Rather, the choice for the most part fell upon texts previously unavailable in English and thus less known to readers who do not happen to read in Russian. In addition, the works presented here arguably give a good idea of how the “birth of the body” in Russian literature and culture actually happened and of the extremely laborious, difficult nature of this birth. Certain works previously unjustly overlooked in English-speaking Slavic studies—such as Georgii Ivanov’s The Decay of the Atom or Vladislav Kho- dasevich’s essay On Pornography—will undoubtedly interest readers who are fascinated by Russia’s Silver Age and its complex legacy as it was pro- jected both onto émigré and early Soviet writing. It is very important that many Silver Age authors and their followers felt that Russian culture had to liberate itself from the shackles of ubiquitous “spirituality” or self-imposed “chastity” that had pre-determined its deeply ingrained sexophobia. It is thus not a coincidence that this collection opens with a series of brief excerpts from Vasilii Rozanov’s “non-fiction.” His philosophy of sexuality’s lasting impact on most of his contemporaries and progeny— even on those who openly expressed their disdain for him, like Fyo- dor Sologub—from Aleksandr Kuprin and Leonid Andreev to Yevgenii Zamyatin and Andrei Platonov to Vladimir Nabokov and G. Ivanov has often been underestimated or misinterpreted by some Slavists. It is high time Rozanov’s legacy be retrieved from the Procrustean bed of his pro- fessed anti-Semitism, homophobia and/or misogyny and discussed in the context of Russia’s search of its own variety of modernized discourses of human sexuality. I do hope that the present anthology will augment and enrich the reader’s knowledge of Russia’s erotic prose, most familiar through such widely available works (in both English and Russian) as Mikhail Artsyba- shev’s Sanin, Fyodor Sologub’s The Petty Demon, Evdokia Nagrodskaia’s xii translator and editor’s foreword

The Wrath of Dionysus, Mikhail Kuzmin’s Wings, Ivan Bunin’s Dark Avenues or Vladimir Nabokov’s The Enchanter and Lolita. These much better known (or even globally renowned, as in the case of Lolita) literary texts can be borrowed from almost any university library or bought in an online bookstore. This anthology can fulfill the role of further reading to those texts. The inclusion of two early Soviet texts, by Vikentii Veresaev and Pan- teleymon Romanov, serves a dual purpose: to contrast them with simul- taneous émigré endeavors and also show the pettiness of Soviet erotic thinking, the hypocrisy of Bolshevik/Communist concepts of gender equality and sexual freedom. One can only imagine the gruesome personal tragedy of these two authors whose creative worldview was shaped during the Silver Age and who under the Soviet regime had to resort to the language of allegory and satire as they aimed to conceal their black- humorous sarcasm about the new society’s relapse into good old Russian trivialization, fear and ignorance of sexuality and corporeality. All the translations from Russian into English in this anthology are mine.

Alexei Lalo, Melikian Center, Arizona State University Part One

Erotic Silver Age (1900–1922)

Vasilii Rozanov Selected Excerpts

Fig. 1 Vasilii Rozanov

Rozanov (1856–1919) was a philosopher and essayist, literary critic and a religious thinker, one who is often referred to as a pioneering (or, as some argue, the only) Russian philosopher of sexualities. In his numerous books and articles he tirelessly debated his numerous contemporaries (including writers like Leo Tolstoy and philosophers like Vladimir Solovyov and Niko- lai Berdyaev) who thought that marriage was an anachronism, lust a disease, and human sexuality to be dispensed with and replaced with some obscure rituals between the parties who had previously been known as Man and Woman . . . Needless to say, some of Rozanov’s coevals did not enjoy his “morbid interest” in and glorification of reproductive sex and marriage com- paring him to some of the most repulsive characters Russian literature had ever produced: from Dostoevsky’s Smerdyakov and Fyodor Pavlovich (The Brothers Karamazov) to Sologub’s Peredonov (The Petty Demon). Rozanov wrote his magnum opus—a trilogy comprising Solitaria, Fallen Leaves: First Basket and Fallen Leaves: Second Basket (1911–1915)—as a series of relatively brief intermezzos and succinct aphorisms, which makes 4 part one this work easy to be quoted here, along with short excerpts from his other writings and memoirs about him.1

On the “Spirit of Castration”

The dreadful spirit of castration, denial of any flesh . . . has gripped the Russian spirit with such a force, of which in the West they have no idea (“The Russian Church” (1909), In Dark Religious Rays 13).

On Representing Virgin Mary in Russian Church Painting

Prerevolutionary Russian religious culture was heavily dependent on a neo- Platonic version of Christianity received through Byzantium under the name of Orthodox Christianity, and it is no surprise that this culture determined the early Russian boundaries for discourses of sexuality and the flesh. One of its most familiar artistic manifestations was the Russian icon, in which the representation of the human and divine form was notoriously “fleshless,” i.e., the bodily, the corporeal was simply not represented. For example, Andrei Rublev’s iconic representations of human and divine forms (such as his Trin- ity) are markedly non-naturalistic: one can observe in them what Orthodox theologians call “spiritual flesh,” that is, the bodies look incredibly light, frail and unearthly. Familiar Western tableaux with madonnas as full-bodied wives and mothers were simply absent within this culture of representation.

Russian church singing and painting are both fleshless, lifeless, “spiritual,” in strict accordance with the general order of the Church. The Mother of God breast-feeding Jesus the infant is an impossible spectacle in a Russian

1 Russian originals: Etkind, Aleksandr. Khlyst/Хлыст: секты, литература и революция. Москва: Новое литературное обозрение, 1998. Galkovsky, Dmitrii. Endless Deadlock/Бесконечный тупик. Москва: Самиздат, 1998. Remizov, Aleksei. Kukha/Кукха. Розановы письма (1923). Эрос. Россия. Серебряный век. Сост. А. Щуплов. Москва: Серебряный бор, 1992. 228–239. Rozanov, Vasilii. “Kuprin”/“Куприн” (1909). О писателях и писательстве. 13 December 2008. http://bibliotekar.ru/rus-Rozanov/51.htm. Retrieved 05/11/2011. Rozanov, Vasilii. In the World of the Unclear and Undecided/В мире неясного и нерешенного. Москва: Республика, 1995. Rozanov, Vasilii. Fallen Leaves/Опавшие листья. Москва: Современник, 1992. Rozanov, Vasilii. In Dark Religious Rays/В темных религиозных лучах. Москва: Республика, 1994. vasilii rozanov: selected excerpts 5

Orthodox basilica. Here, Russians went against the historically verifiable Word of God: for instance, although Virgin Mary gave birth to Jesus when she was still very young, not older than 17, she is never [in Russia] represented at this age. The Mother of God is presented as an old or already aging woman, around 40 years old, who holds a well-covered Baby Jesus (compare this with Catholic naked bodies); she looks not like his Mother but rather like a nanny who is nursing someone else’s unhappy child: her face is invariably mournful and often has a tear running down her cheek . . . This all grew out of one tendency: the idea of dispensing with all human traits—everything usual, mundane, and earthly in the religion— and leaving only the divine, the heavenly, the supernatural (“The Russian Church” (1909), In Dark Religious Rays 14–15).

Hinting at Major Russian Religious Philosophers’ and Novelists’ Denial of Marriage and Sexuality

Seven elders over sixty years old who cannot get their heads up, who cannot get their arms up, who actually cannot get anything up, while their jaws move only slightly when they chew—lo and behold, they do not “encroach upon a woman” any more and have committed themselves to celibacy. This is such a pleasure for their Fatherland and a delight for Heaven. Everyone is amazed at the elders: “Look, they do not actually “encroach” either manifestly or secretly.” And so they are eulogized. They have been glorified. They have been decorated. “Live gods on the face of the earth.” The elders are chewing up their pap and smiling: “It is true that we do not encroach. We shall be eternal role-models for 17-year-old maidens and 23-year-old youths who will be inspired by our example in resisting lust and not sinking into fornication (Fallen Leaves: First Basket 121).

On Sexuality and Clothing as “Sexual Concealment”

Everyone feels instinctively that the enigma of being is actually the enigma of a nascent being, i.e., that it is the enigma of nascent sex. What is sex? What is the sexual? First of all, a point covered by darkness and horror, beauty and disgust; a point we don’t even dare to call by its name, and for which, in specialized literature, we use an alien term from Latin—a language for which we 6 part one don’t feel keenly.2 A stunning instinct; the stunning feeling, with which a person is “struck dumb,” he/she is not “finding the words,” doesn’t “dare” to speak as he/she approaches the root and foundation of his/her selfhood and being. We have mentioned the horror surrounding sex: let’s recall the mistake of Oedipus and the horror with which he put out his own eyes; a human being never experiences the fright that shakes him to the utmost depths in making such mistakes, [a horror] almost unimportant in a utilitarian sense. Our clothing is only a development of sexual concealment; there are two astonishing things about clothing: it covers—that’s its concept—but it also reveals, marks down, points out, decorates— and again it does it all to the sexual in us. A tendency to conceal oneself, to flee, and the tendency to reveal oneself and conquer are amazingly combined in clothing, and in fact both these tendencies are combined in sex. What we call sexual “shamefulness” in ourselves is something like a psychological extension of clothing: we shamefully withdraw into sex— the deeper the more it is expressed, the more active it is. A child in whom sex is veiled, not manifest, not active objectively, does not know shame. But along with this fear of being seen, open to the other, there exists also a remarkable craving of sex for opening up, attract to and expose itself. A girl who chastely blushes when someone looks at her would never want to live beyond the very second she learns that nobody will ever look at her any more before she goes to the grave. She would be ready to go [instantly] into the grave, but why? What is this combination of the craving to remain necessarily a mystery [and] the most poignant hope, craving, expectation for someone to pluck and tear apart this mystery? The struggle between these two forces is played out on the ashamed and beautiful face of a girl (In the World of the Unclear and Undecided 21–22).

On Women’s Sexuality

Have I ever liked women as bodies, in a bodily way? Well, mysticism apart . . . in concreto? There is “this” and “that” near the shoulder?

2 Rozanov means that the Russian language uses the word pol for ‘sex’: the latter term is, for him, foreign and alien. Interestingly, the primary meaning of pol in Russian is ‘half,’ a 50% part of something. The idea of incompleteness of sex may thus be somewhat fatal- istically encrypted in the Russian language. However, this argument is certainly rather speculative, as the primary meaning of the word пол in Russian is ‘floor,’ not ‘half.’ vasilii rozanov: selected excerpts 7

Yes, precisely, near the shoulder, and only there. I have always wanted to pinch that place (but never have). Since childhood. Always feasted my eyes upon cheeks, necks. The bosom, most of all . . . I have [always] been excited with and attracted to, or, rather, enchanted by, breasts and a pregnant belly. I have always wanted to see the whole world pregnant [. . .] My attitude to women (and girls) is always this: always [attentive] to their Fate, always ardent, always as though I were invisibly leading them (the thread of the conversation) toward getting pregnant and breastfeed- ing, in which I find the highest idealism of their existence [. . .] A woman with at least some intellect smoothes out her husband’s rough spots and imperceptibly leads him in their wedlock to the ideal, toward the best. She leads him during powerful murmur and caresses at night. “Come on! Come on!”—and little by little, toward the best, toward the norm. Sex is a mountain of lights: a high, high mountain from which lights emanate, its rays spreading all over the Earth, pouring a new noblest meaning all over her. Believe this mountain. It simply stands on four wooden legs (steel and other hard metals are inadmissible here; neither are the “stinging” nails). I saw it. I bear witness. And this is what I shall stand for (Fallen Leaves: First Basket 180–183).

On “Lechery”

Lechery is a word for which there is no corresponding subject. It has been used to signify a heap of phenomena that humankind has failed to understand. At a bad hour, it had a bad dream, as if all these phenomena were actually akin to fungi, algae or roots in nature: essentially “bad,” insofar as they are “concealed” (the thought of infantile [Vladimir] Solovyov in The Justification of the Good). And so [humankind] has placed them all here [under the word ‘lechery’] without the [necessary] analysis and without any understanding (Fallen Leaves: Second Basket 281).

Defining the Spiritual v. the Bodily

Without bodily sympathy there can be no spiritual friendship. Body is the beginning of spirit. The root of spirit. And spirit is the scent of the body (Fallen Leaves: First Basket 217). 8 part one

On Human Genitals as “Three Dots”

Everything has been drawn and completed in a human being, apart from the genitals that next to everything else appear to be some kind of a dot- dot-dot or a vagueness . . . which is met by and to which another organ- ism’s vagueness or dot-dot-dot connect themselves. And only then do both [become] clear. Does not this incompleteness cause [the genitals’] disgusting appearance (that everyone complains about) and ecstasy at the moment when the unspoken is over (during physical intercourse)? It is as though G wanted to create that intercourse but did not exe- cute this move, but rather provided its beginning in a man and its beginning in a woman. And they are now finishing this original move. Out of that, its delights and irresistibility. In utriusque sexus homines [androgynous persons, hermaphrodites], on the contrary, everything has been completed: which is why so much talent is associated with them (Fallen Leaves: First Basket 122).

Contemporary Russian historian and Rozanov connoisseur Dmitrii Galk- ovsky comments on this quote as he attempts to pinpoint the theme of sex in Russian culture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries:

There are some subtle themes. Through them people disclose or expose themselves to a larger extent than they are otherwise willing to . . . For example, the theme of love, eroticism and sex . . . Indeed, the human body elsewhere is all smooth lines, harmony, and it is only in the sex organs that nature has somehow slipped and become nervous . . . “Dot-dot-dot.” How well expressed! . . . A multitude of meanings. Dot-dot-dot as something static, as a drawing; dot-dot-dot also as something dynamic—these damned organs always change: increase, decrease, change colors. Also, dot-dot-dot due to bashfulness, shame and fear. These sorts of themes are [textually] marked by dot-dot-dot. And, finally, dot-dot-dot implies vagueness, an enigma. A combination of the basest and the loftiest. A complex and subtle theme . . . How well [Rozanov] understood it! . . . Poor Russians have lost all their wits over it. And if in the late nineteenth century “the sex question” in Russia was just a crude variety of the overall European “pre-Freudian” psychosis, in the second half of the twentieth century it developed into straightforward scoffing (The Endless Deadlock 368). vasilii rozanov: selected excerpts 9

On the Nature of Prostitution and Prostitutes (Commenting on Aleksandr Kuprin’s Serialized Novel The Pit)

In his novel Kuprin likened fallen women to children ( following Cesare Lombroso’s criminological ideas popular at the time). In his 1909 review, Rozanov praised Kuprin’s “main observation”—that of the “weak sexuality” or even “sexlessness” of prostitutes—but concluded that prostitution can be “defeated” only as a social phenomenon, not a personal problem. In other words, although he echoes Kuprin in finding the prostitute childlike, he does not see her as a moral aberration, as a product of some sort of degeneration, which would be the dominant Western anthropological/criminological perspective at the time in theories influenced by Lombroso.

What is this [“fallen”] girl like in her nature? Weak-sexed or altogether sexless! Her very “fall” occurred due to a certain indifference to her sexuality—because sex was not perceived by its subject as something large, important, valuable, worth being preserved! “Just something, like anything else in a human being,” just like “hands,” “legs,” and “head” that are necessary for a craft. Whenever sex is not immanently valuable, a natural “prostitute” is born; just as men who don’t have a serious idea of their sexuality are, in essence, male prostitutes, i.e., they do exactly the same thing as these girls. But execution by society for some reason befalls not those who are on top, who are ringleaders of all this, who are buyers but the pur- chased merchandise that is truly wretched (“Kuprin,” web resource).

On “Cleansing” Prostitution’s Bad Image

Love for sale is really a disgrace that should be erased by sword, artillery and gunpowder (my dream in grade school). One should consider it as parallel to counterfeiting of coins that “discredit the state.” For all these “lupanars” [brothels] and prostitutes hanging about in huge numbers in night streets “discredit the family,” refute the [idea of ] family and make marriage (perceptibly and straightforwardly) unnecessary. . . . But “prostitution never yields to anything,” as history testifies. So “let it exist,” but in a totally different shape than now—not in the shape of stray dirty dogs bumming around the streets and available to anyone, not as a “thrift store” where everyone “can buy sunflower seeds for a penny.” We need to cleanse its lecherous, defiling image. 10 part one

Once a thought crossed my mind: during a certain part of the evening, from 7 to 9 p.m., all available women (unmarried and not of “moonlight” persuasion [Rozanov coined this term to euphemistically denote gays and lesbians—A.L.]) go out to the street and sit on wooden benches, each one in front of her house, dressed modestly—and each with a flower in her hand. Their eyes should be modestly downcast; they must not sing or say anything. Neither should they call anyone up. A passer-by will stop by the one he likes and will greet her thus: “Hello. I am with you.” After this she will stand up and, without looking at him, go inside her house. That same evening she will become his wife. Specific days of the week should be allocated for this, each month throughout the year. Let’s call these days the “days of an absolved sinner”—in her honor. These women will include all those dwellers of a town or a city incapable of a monogamous marriage, incapable of reaching the truth, the heights and the fidelity of a monogamous marriage . . . They should not be praised or condemned. They just exist as a fact. They must take good care of themselves [probably R. means their good looks and sexual hygiene—A.L.], watch out for their bodily cleanliness, as well as have fully calm nerves. They must always be fresh: the ones who take two [“clients”] in one night (nowadays a common thing) should be banished, along with those who take one during their monthly period or on “undesirable days” in general. Through this, the “raging” of prostitution will be halted, while the “soul of prostitution”—that does in fact exist—will emerge to the surface from all the rubbish. It goes without saying that [these women] will bear children, they should have several in fact. They are family women, but they are “widowed” every morning, and every subsequent evening they “get married again” (it is their psychology and the feeling of self-consciousness, not at all killed or diminished (Fallen Leaves: Second Basket 432–434).

On Modernizing Marriage and Fighting Masturbation and Prostitution

It is important to remember that onanism/masturbation was heavily patholo- gized at the time, while prostitution was seen as not just a socio-psychological sore but a problem of biological degeneration.

A survey has shown that roughly from the 6th grade of the gymnasium [6th form of secondary school], students enter the stage of onanism alternating with prostitution. One or the other. If not one, then the other. But aren’t both awful? [It is imperative that] . . . not only marriage between vasilii rozanov: selected excerpts 11 gymnasium students of both sexes should be allowed, but that it be made compulsory for 16-year-old boys and 14.5 year-old girls (to make sure their imaginations are not spoiled yet). The implementation of this should be entrusted to parents and school authorities, and only upon fulfilling this condition should they be allowed to receive their graduation certificates. Indeed, “dream” and “romance” could well be placed inside marriage and occur “later on” in wedlock (Fallen Leaves: First Basket 237).

On Nikolai Gogol’s “Sexual Enigma”

Nikolai Gogol (1809–1852) was one of the founding fathers of the Golden Age of Russian literature, revered and widely studied to this day. It is com- monplace in US Russian studies to share Simon Karlinsky’s influential claim (made in his 1976 book on this author) that Gogol was a closeted homo- sexual, which accounted for his often morbid and bizarre representations of heterosexual attraction, marriage and female characters. In Rozanov’s times, there existed another theory: that Gogol suffered from “compulsive onanism.” Rozanov, apparently, would not buy any of these interpretations. He argued that Gogol was in fact a necromaniac, if not a necrophile. Most characters referred to in the excerpt are from various Gogol’s works, such as his Ukrainian tales and The Dead Souls.

“Anunciata was tall and white as marble” (Gogol)—these words could only be said by someone who had never looked at any woman, not “even with minimal interest.” Gogol’s “sexual enigma” is interesting. No way was it in his on . . . [onanism?], as everyone suggests (rumors). But in what then? Indisputably, he had never “known a woman,” that is, he had no physiological appetite for her. What did he have? A striking brightness of his colors whenever he talked about deceased people. “A beauty (sorceress) in the coffin” is his most memorable image. The “dead people rising from the graves” that Burulbash and Katerina see as they sail by a cemetery in a boat are stunning. The same can be said about Hanna, the drowned woman. Everywhere in Gogol the deceased are living second lives, the deceased are never “dead,” whereas living people are amazingly dead. They are all puppets, schemes, allegories for vices. On the contrary, the deceased—both Hanna and the sorceress—are beautiful and interesting as individuals. They are not like Sobakevich. And so I think that Gogol’s sexual mystery is somewhere here, in this “beautiful late world” . . . It is striking that he had never 12 part one described a deceased man, as though males did not die. But they die, of course, only that Gogol was not interested in them in the least. He created a whole boarding school of deceased women—and never of old ones (not a single one) but all very young and pretty . . . It is remarkable that his moral ideal—Ulen’ka—looks like a dead woman. She is pale, transparent, almost never talks, but only weeps. “As though she were fished out of the water,” and she just went ahead and returned to life (for Gogol’s enjoyment), but her very life manifested itself in the charm of her falling tears reminiscent of the way water drops from the body of a drowned woman who has been fished out of the water and placed on her feet. Bottomless depth and enigma (Fallen Leaves: Second Basket 326–327).

On Leo Tolstoy’s “Imbecility”

Tolstoy . . . Whenever I spoke with him, among other things, about myself and marriage and sexuality, I saw that he was confused about all that, akin to a little schoolboy who tries to copy something and is not sure [of the difference] between ‘и,’ ‘i’ and ‘й’; in essence, [Tolstoy] does not understand anything about this, apart from the fact that ‘one has to abstain.’ He could not even take apart that thread—‘to abstain’—into the little individual flax fibers of which it is woven. No analysis, no ability to combine things; not a single thought, just exclamations. It is impossible to interact with this; this was something imbécile (Solitaria in Fallen Leaves, 84).

Rozanov as Remembered by Zinaida Gippius

The prominent Russian decadents Dmitrii Merezhkovsky, his wife Zinaida Gippius, and their disciple Dmitrii Filosofov (following the philosopher Nikolai Fyodorov) firmly believed in what they called the imminent “transformation of sex” and predicted the abolishment of “the sexual act” and childbirth altogether. The body, they claimed, will somehow become sexless and immortal. Coitus would be replaced by a new form of individual relationships between what used to be man and woman—a form that they failed to specify. Later in her life, in one of her letters to Filosofov, Gippius would recall Vasilii Rozanov constantly mocking them at the Religious-Philosophical Meetings of Petersburg intelligentsia: “Come on, please tell me what on vasilii rozanov: selected excerpts 13 earth [a man and a woman] would do together [once sexual intercourse has been abolished]? How will they do it? Will they do something like that? Or maybe something like this?” At this, Rozanov would produce some bizarre, maybe even obscene, gesticulation, but the decadent mys- tics would just, as Gippius confesses, “always be embarrassed and become dumb” (quoted in Etkind 204). This exchange is quite symptomatic of Russian silences about sex: the trio literally lost their tongues and could not find words to parry Rozanov’s mockeries.

Aleksei Remizov on Rozanov

Remizov, a fellow author and a friend, recalls in his memoir that at one evening meeting of the literati in Remizov’s house Rozanov remarked:

“During the minute of copulation . . . Beast turns into Man,” [said Rozanov]. “How about Man [when he is copulating]? Does he turn into an Angel? Or, would you say . . . ” [someone inquired, in horror]. “Man turns into God,” [Rozanov responded] (Remizov 230).

Leonid Andreyev In the Fog

Fig. 2 Leonid Andreyev

Andreyev (1871–1919) has been credited as a founding father of Russian expressionism. Today much of his work seems both too melodramatic and too obsolete, but some of it remains an important page in the history of the Silver Age. It reflects many of the debates about eroticism and carnality trig- gered by, among other things, Tolstoy’s publication of The Kreutzer Sonata, Father Sergius, and other works of his late, “extremist,” period. Largely in response to the Sonata, Andreyev published two scandalous texts, a short story called The Abyss and a novella titled In the Fog (both appeared in 1902). In The Abyss the 22-year-old Nemovetsky walks with Zinochka, his 17-year- old girlfriend (with whom he has not yet had intercourse, perhaps due to his timidity and her innocence), through the forest; they get lost and encounter three escaped criminals; the thugs beat him up and gang-rape the girl; when he comes to his senses, he finds her naked and unconscious and instead of trying to get help, he suddenly lusts after Zinochka’s body and wants to have sex with her. It is not clear from the text whether Nemovetsky actually does rape her, but he definitely lusts for her body and thus falls into a metaphoric moral “abyss.” It appears that Andreyev’s message to his readers is that humans are animals (especially men), and to steep oneself in sex means to indulge in animal-like behavior; in this regard Nemovetsky the “imaginary” 16 leonid andreyev: in the fog rapist is equated with the three thugs—the “real” rapists. This behavior is what Russians sometimes refer to as “animal instinct.” Andreyev’s novella In the Fog published just a few months after The Abyss was an attempt to take a new, modern look at such pressing social issues as generational/”fathers and sons” conflicts, sex education of the youth, nervous adolescent sexuality, the male teenager’s coming of age, prostitution, venereal/ sexually transmitted diseases, sex-related murder, and suicide. The novella was attacked by critics of different persuasions and political allegiances—from the arch-conservative Burenin who accused Andreyev of “erotomania” to the Countess Sofia A. Tolstaya (Tolstoy’s spouse), who called it “dirty” and “cheap.” Zinaida Gippius thought that Andreyev “derives pleasure from the morbid emotions” of his protagonist. What frustrated and annoyed these critics was Andreyev’s attempt to break away from the dominant tradition of silencing and/or distorting sex, gender and corporeality in Russian literature. Writers like Andreyev did pave the way for subsequent less hysterical, more calm and balanced treatments of carnality and eroticism in Russian literature.1

On that day since the very dawn there had been a strange immobile fog in the streets. It was light and transparent; it did not cover objects but everything that went through it became an alarming dark yellow color. Fresh rouge on women’s cheeks and the bright spots of their garments were peeping out through it like through a black veil: darkly and distinctly. Toward the south, where the low November sun was hiding behind a curtain of clouds, the sky was light, lighter than earth, while toward the north it descended like a wide, smoothly darkening screen and at the earth level became yellow-black, opaque like at night. Against this heavy background, dark buildings appeared light-gray, and two white columns at the entrance to some garden devastated by autumn were like two yellow candles at someone’s deathbed. The flowerbeds in this garden were dug up and trodden by coarse feet, and on their broken stems tardy, morbidly bright flowers were quietly dying in the fog. And the many people in the streets were all in a hurry, and they were all glum and silent. Sad and frightfully anxious was this ghostlike day choking in the yellow fog. The clock struck twelve in the dining room, then struck a briefer twelve thirty, but in Pavel Rybakov’s room it was dark as if in twilight, and there

1 The novella is translated here in a slightly abridged version. Russian original: Андреев Л.Н. Собрание сочинений в 6 т. Москва: Книговек, 2012. Т.1. leonid andreyev: in the fog 17 was a black-yellow glow reflected upon everything. It made notebooks and papers thrown around the table look as yellow as old ivory, and the unsolved algebra problem in one of them, with its clear numbers and mysterious letters, looked so dated, so deserted and needless as though many boring years had rushed past it; the face of Pavel who was lying on the bed also looked yellow. His strong young arms were thrown behind his head and bared almost to the elbows; an open book, with its spine on top, was on his chest; his dark eyes were staring at the painted stucco ceiling. In its diversity of colors and their dirty tones there was something dull, irksome and taste- less, reminiscent of tens of people who had lived in this apartment before the Rybakovs; the way they slept, spoke and did their own thing—they had put their alien stamp on everything. And these people reminded Pavel of hundreds of others, of teachers and classmates, of noisy and crowded streets in which women walked, and about that thing—the hardest and scariest one for him—that one would want to forget and never think about. “Boring . . . Bo-o-o-ring!” Pavel drawls, closes his eyes and stretches out so that the toes of his boots touch the iron rods of the bed frame. The angles of his thick eyebrows squinted, and his whole face grew skewed by the grimace of pain and disgust distorting and disfiguring his features; when the wrinkles smoothed out though, one could see that his face was young and handsome. And particularly beautiful were his bold-shaped plump lips, and the fact that there was no moustache over them made them look pure and lovely like those of a young girl. But it was hard to lie with closed eyes and in the darkness of shut lids see all the horrible things that one wants to forget forever, and because it was even more agonizing Pavel’s eyes opened up forcefully. Their perplexed glow made his face look aged and anxious. “I am a poor fellow! I am a poor fellow!” he suddenly pitied himself aloud and turned his eyes to the window, craving the light. But there was none of it; only yellow twilight was persistently crawling in through the windows, flowing around the room and becoming so clearly perceptible that one could almost feel it with one’s fingertips. And again before his eyes the ceiling above was spreading itself out. The stucco ceiling portrayed a Russian village: a hut that does not exist in reality was standing with its corner up front; a peasant was standing still next to it, with his leg raised a little and his cane taller than himself, while he was taller still than the hut; further on, there was a crooked tiny church, and near it a huge horse cart was protruding forward, with such a small horse that it resembled a track hound dog. Its snout was sharp just like a dog’s. And then in the same order: a hut, a large peasant, a church, 18 leonid andreyev: in the fog and a huge cart—and this way around the whole room. It was all yellow against the dirty-pink background, and resembled not a village but someone’s sad and meaningless life. Repulsive was the artist who had sculpted the village and had not given it a single tree. “If only breakfast could be served sooner!” Pavel whispered, although he was not hungry at all, and impatiently turned over to the side. As he moved, the book fell down to the floor and its pages crumpled, but Pavel did not reach out to lift it up. On the book’s spine there were letters printed in gold over black: “Buckle. History of Civilization,” and this was reminiscent of something ancient, of multitudes of people who from time immemorial had been trying to get settled in life and had failed to do so; of life in which nothing is clear and occurs with cruel necessity, and of the things sad and oppressive like the committed crime Pavel did not want to think about. And he wanted the light so much, broad and clear, that he almost burst into tears. He jumped up, went around the book lying on the floor and started pulling at the curtains over the window, trying to spread them as widely as possible. “Ah, damn it!” he cursed and pulled at the fabric but it was heavy and kept folding back disobediently. He suddenly felt tired and devoid of all energy, and just moved it aside and sat down on the cold windowsill. The fog was everywhere, and the sky behind the gray roofs was yellow-black; its shadow fell down over the pavement and houses. A week before it had snowed lightly for the first time; it has melted since, and now there was sticky and gray mud on the pavement. In some spots wet stones reflected the black sky and squinted like dark glitter, and over them, trembling and swinging, carriages rolled on. The clatter was not heard from above as it froze in the fog, unable to ascend from earth, and this noiseless movement under the black sky, amid dark and soaked houses, seemed pur- poseless and boring. But, amongst those walking and riding by there were women, and their presence gave this picture a secret and anxious meaning. They were walking along, going about their own business and seemed ordinary and inconspicuous; but Pavel saw their bizarre and frightful iso- lation: they were alien to the rest of the crowd and did not dissolve in it; rather, they were like little fires in the dark. And everything existed solely for them: streets, houses, and people; everything rushed to them, craved them—and did not understand them. The word “woman” was burnt in his brain in fiery letters; it was the one word he would first notice on any page spread before him; people would normally speak quietly but as soon as they pronounced the word “woman,” it was as though they screamed it out—and to Pavel, this was the most obscure, mysterious and frightful leonid andreyev: in the fog 19 word. With a sharp and suspicious stare, he would follow every woman and watch her as though she might approach a house and explode it with all the people inside or would do something even more horrible. But whenever he came across a pretty little female face, he would straighten up and command with his eyes that she turn around and look at him. But she would not turn around, and it would again become empty, dark and frightening in his heart as in the house of the dead that had been ravaged by the gloomy plague killing all alive and boarding up the windows. “Bo-o-o-ring!” Pavel whined and turned away from the street side. In the dining room next door they had already been walking and clat- tering dishes for a while. Then suddenly the silence fell, and there came the lordly voice of Sergei Andreich, Pavel’s father, a guttural, condescend- ing mellow bass. At its first round and pleasant sounds it felt as though one smelled good cigars, a smart book and clean linen. But at the moment there was something cracked and distorted in it, as if Sergei Andreich’s larynx had been penetrated by the dirty-yellow, boring fog. “And our youth is still in slumber?” He did not hear his mother’s reply. “And he has certainly missed the mass at college today, hasn’t he?” No reply heard again. “Well, of course,” his father carried on mockingly, “this is an obsolete custom and . . .” Pavel did not hear the rest of the phrase, as Sergei Andreich turned away; but it must have been something funny as Lilia burst out laughing. When Pavel’s father was secretly displeased with him for something, he berated him for getting up late on holidays and not going to the mass, although the father himself was completely indifferent to religion and had not been in church for some twenty years, ever since he got married. And since last summer when they had been living at the summer cottage, he had been nursing something against Pavel, and the latter thought he was guessing right. But now he gloomily decided: “Ah, to hell with him!” Having grabbed a notebook from the table, he pretended he was reading. But his eyes were hostile and they turned alertly toward the dining room, like those of a man who is used to hiding and constantly expects to be attacked. “Call for Pavel!” Sergei Andreich said. “Pavel! Pavlusha!” his mother called. Pavel got up quickly and probably hurt himself badly: he bent forward and his face was distorted by the grimace of suffering; his hands were 20 leonid andreyev: in the fog pressed against his belly. He slowly straightened up, clenched his teeth, and his shivering hands adjusted his jacket. Then his face grew pale and lost any sort of expression, like that of a blind man, and he walked out to the dining room stepping resolutely but preserving the traces of the sharp pain he experienced in his gait. “What have you been up to?” Sergei Andreich asked briefly: it was not their custom to say ‘hello’ in the morning. “Reading,” Pavel replied just as briefly. “Reading what?” “Buckle.” “There we go, Buckle,” Sergei Andreich said menacingly, watching his son through his pince-nez. “So what?” Pavel replied resolutely and defiantly and looked his father straight in the eye. He made a pause and uttered meaningfully: “Nothing.” At this point Lilechka intervened as she felt sorry for her brother: “Pavlie, are you going to be home tonight?” Pavel was silent. “If someone does not answer a question when asked, this someone is usually called a boor. What is your opinion on this, Pavel Sergeievich?” the father inquired. “As if you really want to know, Sergei Andreich!” the mother interfered. “Eat up, or your cutlets will be cold. What an awful weather, one should put on lamps in the streets! I don’t know how I will take this ride.” “I will . . .” Pavel replied to Lilechka, and Sergei Andreich adjusted his pince-nez and said: “This melancholy . . . I can’t stand it, this global sorrow. A decent boy must be cheerful and have fun.” “One cannot have fun all the time,” said Lilechka, who always had fun. “I am not arguing that people should deliberately be having fun. Why aren’t you eating? I’m talking to you, Pavel!” “I don’t want to.” “Why don’t you want to?” “No appetite.” “Where were you last night? Hanging out?” “I was at home.” “That’s what it is! At home!” “Where else could I be?” Pavel asked pluckily. leonid andreyev: in the fog 21

Sergei Andreich replied to this with venomous politeness: “How would I know all those places,” he emphasized the word ‘places,’ “that Pavel Sergeyevich feels free to attend? Pavel Sergeyevich is an adult; Pavel Sergeyevich will soon grow a moustache; Pavel Sergeyevich may drink vodka—how would I know?” Breakfast continued in silence, and everything upon which the light from the window was falling seemed yellow and oddly glum. Sergei Andreich attentively and quizzically looked at Pavel’s face and thought: “And he has circles around his eyes. Could it be true that he is intimate with women—such a young boy!” This strange and agonizing question that Sergei Andreich did not have enough power to think through, had first appeared recently, last summer, and he vividly remembers how it happened and will never forget it. Behind a small shed surrounded by thick grass and where a white birch-tree cast its cool dark blue shadow, he accidentally came across a partly torn and crumpled sheet of paper. There was something special and alarming about this sheet: it was the way they tear and crumple papers that cause hatred and anger; and so Sergei Andreich picked it up, smoothed it out and looked. It was a drawing. At first he did not get it, smiled and thought: “This is Pavel’s drawing. He is so good at it!” But then he turned the sheet sideways and clearly discerned a hideously cynical and dirty picture. “What filth!” he said angrily and tossed the little sheet. In about ten minutes he came back for it, took it to his study and exam- ined it for a long time trying to resolve a caustic and painful riddle: was it Pavel who drew this or someone else? He could not allow that it was Pavel who could draw this dirty, vulgar thing and could be aware, as he was drawing it, of all the depraved and filthy content that was in it. The boldness of lines revealed an experienced and corrupt hand that did not hesitate to approach the most concealed things, of which uncorrupt people are ashamed to even think; in the diligence with which the drawing was polished with an eraser and colored by a red pencil, there was the naiveté of a deep and unconscious downfall. Sergei Andreich was looking at it and could not believe that his Pavel, his intelligent and well-bred boy, all of whose thoughts he knew, could with his own hand, a tanned hand of a strong and pure young man, draw such filth and know and realize everything he was drawing. And since it was frightening to think that Pavel had done it, he decided it was someone else, but he did keep the little sheet. And when he saw Pavel hopping off his bicycle, joyful, cheerful, still full of clean odors of fields that he had roamed about, he decided once again that it was not Pavel who did it and felt happy. 22 leonid andreyev: in the fog

But the happiness soon passed, and already in half an hour Sergei Andreich was watching Pavel and thinking: who is this strange and foreign youth, oddly tall, oddly resembling a grown man? He speaks in a coarse and masculine voice, eats greedily and in large amounts, calmly and independently pours wine into the glass, and condescendingly jokes around with Lilya. He is called Pavel, he has Pavel’s face and Pavel’s laughter, and when he gnawed round the upper crust of a loaf of bread, he did it just like Pavel –and yet there is no Pavel in him. “How old are you, Pavel?” Sergei Andreich asked. Pavel burst out laughing. “I am an old man, daddy! Will turn eighteen soon.” “Well, he still has a way to go before he turns eighteen,” mother cor- rected him. “On December the sixth he will be eighteen.” “But he has no mustache!” Lilya said. And everyone began joking about Pavel not having a mustache, and he pretended that he was crying; and after lunch he stuck some cotton wool over his upper lip and said in a senile voice: “Where is my old woman?” And walked around hobbling. And at this point Lilya noted that Pavel was somehow particularly joyful; after which Pavel frowned, took off the mustache and went to his room. It was since then that Sergei Andreich had been looking for a lovely, well-familiar boy of old but would always bump into something new and mysterious and felt painfully perplexed. And he also learnt something new about Pavel then: that his son always experienced some sort of change of mood: one day he could be joyful and mischievous; another time he could frown for hours, become irritable and unbearable, and one could tell that although he was trying to conceal it, he was suffering from something unknown. And it was hard and unpleasant to see that this close person is sad, and not to know any reasons for it, which made this close person grow remote and foreign. Just by the man- ner in which he walked into a room, how he drank tea without appetite, crumbled bread with his fingers as he was looking sideways at the nearby forest, the father felt his low spirits and grew indignant. And he wanted Pavel to notice this and realize what inconvenience he was causing his father with his bad mood; but Pavel would not notice and, having finished tea, would just leave. “Where are you going?” Sergei Andreich would ask. “To the forest.” “Again to the forest!” the father would remark angrily. Pavel would be slightly surprised: leonid andreyev: in the fog 23

“So what? I go to the forest every day, you know.” The father would then silently turn away, and Pavel would leave; and by his broad heaving back one could tell that he was not even wondering why his father was angry and had already completely forgotten about his existence. For a long time had Sergei Andreich wanted to resolutely and frankly speak with Pavel, but such a conversation would have been too tormenting, and he would postpone it time and again. And having moved back to the city Pavel became especially gloomy and anxious, which made Sergei Andreich unsure if he would be able to speak to his son calmly and impos- ingly enough. But on that day, at the long and boring breakfast, he finally decided that today was the day to talk. “Maybe he is just in love, like all these boys and girls can be,” he would pacify himself. “Look at Lil’ka; she is in love with some Avdeyev, and I don’t even recall who that is. Maybe a classmate.” “Lilya! Will Avdeyev come today?” Sergei Andreich inquired with enhanced, underlined indifference. Startled, Lilya flapped her long eyelashes, dropped her pear and whispered: “Ah! . . .” and then she went down the table for the pear, and when she was back up, she was all reddened and even her voice appeared red. “Tinov will be here, Pospelov will . . . and Avdeyev also will come.” It became a little lighter in Pavel’s room, and the stucco village on the ceiling protruded more sharply and looked full of its dumb and naïve smugness. Pavel angrily turned to his side and took up the book but soon put it on his chest and began thinking of what Lilya had said: her grade school girlfriends will come. That means that Katya Reymer—always serious, always pensive, always sincere Katya Reymer—will show up too. This thought was like fire upon which his heart had fallen, and with a moan he quickly turned and buried his face in the pillow. Then, having returned to the previous position, he wiped two tears off his eyes and stared at the ceiling, but he no longer saw the peasant with a big stick or the huge cart. He recalled the summer cottage and a dark July night. Dark was that night, and the stars were shivering in the dark blue abyss of the sky as they were extinguished from below by a black cloud ascending from behind the horizon. And in the forest, where he was hiding in the bushes, it was so dark that he could not see his own hand, and at times it seemed to him that he was not there, just the silent, god-forsaken darkness. The world spread about in all directions, and it was limitless and dark, and with his whole lonely and mournful heart did Pavel feel its 24 leonid andreyev: in the fog immeasurable and alien hugeness. He was waiting and waiting for Katya Reymer to walk by along the path, with Lilechka and other joyful and lighthearted people who lived in that alien world and were alien to him. He did not go with them because he loved Katya Reymer with a pure, beautiful and sad love, and she did not know about this love and would never be able to requite it. And he wanted to be alone and close to Katya, to feel her remote charm with all the depth of his sorrow and loneliness. And he was lying in the bushes, right on the earth, alien to all people and an outsider to life that with all its beauty, songs and joy was passing him by, passing him by on this dark July night. He was lying there for a long time, and the darkness was getting thicker and blacker when far in front he heard some voices, laughter, rustling of twigs under the feet, and it was clear that a large number of young and cheerful people were coming. All this was approaching with its mass of merry sounds, and it got really close. “Oh, my goodness!” Katya Reymer was saying in her deep and sonorous contralto. “One can easily break a neck here. Tinov, give me some light here.” From the darkness there squeaked the odd and funny voice of a Punchinello: “I lost my matches, Katerina Eduardovna!” Amid the general laughter, another voice, a young and reserved bass, was then heard: “Allow me, Katerina Eduardovna, I will give you light!” Katya Reymer replied to this and her voice was serious and altered: “Please, Nikolai Petrovich!” The match flashed and burnt for a second, lighting only the hand holding it in the dark as if the latter was hanging in the air. Then it became yet darker, and everyone moved on, joking and laughing around. “Give me your hand, Katerina Eduardovna!” the same young, reserved bass was heard. A minute of silence ensued while Katya Reymer was giving him her hand, and then came firm male steps and with them modest rustling of a dress. And the same voice asked quietly and softly: “Why are you so sad, Katerina Eduardovna?” Pavel did not hear the answer. Those passing by turned their backs to him; the voices became muffled, blazed up again like a dying flame of a campfire, and died out. And when it appeared that nothing was there save the complete darkness and silence, all of a sudden female laughter was heard again, so clear, innocent and oddly sly as though it was not a human leonid andreyev: in the fog 25 who had just laughed but a young dark birch-tree or someone hiding in the bushes. And then it was as if a scattering whisper sneaked through the forest, and everything became silent for a moment before a male voice, soft, shiny and sonorous, sang highly and passionately: “You told me: yes, I am in love with you! . . .” So blindingly bright, so full of vital force was this voice that the forest seemed to start moving, and something flaring, like fireflies in their dance, fluttered through Pavel’s eyes. And again the same words were heard, and they rang so fluently, like a moan, like a scream, like a deep indivis- ible sigh. “You told me: yes, I am in love with you! . . .” And again and again, with insane persistence did the singer repeat this brief and long phrase as if he were plunging it into darkness. And he seemed not to be able to stop; and with each repetition the burning appeal became stronger and more irresistible; mercilessness was heard in it—someone’s face was growing pale, and happiness began resembling deathly ennui. A minute of black silence, again this enigmatic, remote female laughter, and everything became silent and heavy silence seemed to have pressed down those walking by. It became deathly quiet and empty like in some void at one thousand miles above the ground. Life just passed by, with all its songs, love and beauty—passed by him on this dark July night. Pavel rose from the bushes and quietly whispered: “Why are you so sad, Katerina Eduardovna?” and quiet tears filled his eyes. “Why are you so sad, Katerina Eduardovna?” he repeated and went straight without any purpose, into the darkness of the falling night. Once he almost bumped into a tree and stopped in perplexity. Then he embraced the coarse trunk with his arm, pressed his face against it and froze in quiet despair that does not know tears and wild screams. Then he quietly moved back from the tree that gave him refuge and walked on. “Why are you so sad, Katerina Eduardovna?” he repeated again as if it were a plaintive song, as a quiet prayer of desperation, and his whole soul was trembling and screaming in these sounds. The frightening twilight had possessed it, and full of great love, it was praying for something light, of which she was not aware, and therefore its prayer was so heated. There was no calmness and silence in the forest: a breath of a storm shook the air, and tree summits roared altogether, and the wind ran through the leaves with its dry smirk. When Pavel went out to the edge of 26 leonid andreyev: in the fog the forest, the wind almost blew his hat away and powerfully hit his face with cold freshness and the smell of rye. It was majestic and menacing. From behind, the forest was ascending with its black and moaning mass; from up front a heavy and glum black thunderstorm cloud was approaching. Underneath there was a rye field; it was so white, and because it was so unintelligibly white amid all this darkness, an obscure and mystical fear was being born [. . .]. That had happened during that dark July night. Pavel was staring at the ceiling, smiling with a bemused and proud smile, and tears were seen in his eyes. “I am such a crybaby!” he whispered shaking his head and naively, childishly wiping his eyes with his fingers [. . .]. And again he saw the summer cottage, but now it was day time, a strange, unpleasant, and eerie day. It was very hot and the sun was shining, and there was an alarming smell of burning coming from somewhere; Pavel was hiding in the bushes near the shore and trembling with fear, looking through his binoculars at bathing women. The bright pink blots of their bodies he could see now, and the blue sky that appeared red, and himself, pale, with shaking hands and dirty knees. Then he saw the brick and stone city again, and those women, indifferent, tired, with impudent and cold eyes [. . .]. “I don’t want this!” he whispered quietly, already surrendering. And reminiscences cut into his soul like a sharp knife into live flesh. And they were all women, their bodies deprived of souls, disgusting like the sticky mud of backyards, and strangely attractive in their unhidden dirt and availability. They were all over the place. They were in cynical, acidic conversations and meaningless anecdotes that he heard from others and was able to retell to other people himself; they were in drawings he had made and shown to his classmates laughingly; they were in lonely thoughts and dreams, heavy like a nightmare but also magnetic. And he vividly recalled the night he would never forget: a toxic, smoke- filled night. This night, two years before, he gave his clean body and his first pure kisses to a depraved and shameless woman. Her name was Luisa; she was dressed in a hussar costume and constantly complained that her leggings were bursting. Pavel no longer remembered the way he was with her; he only recalled his house, to which he had returned very late, right before dawn. The house was dark and quiet; there was a supper left for him in the dining room, and a thick cutlet was covered with a layer of white hardened grease. He was suffering from nausea after drinking beer [. . .]; everyone was soundly asleep in the house, and he felt he was the only one suffering from a pain alien to this pure and good house. leonid andreyev: in the fog 27

Pavel looked around his room and its disgusting stucco ceiling and gave himself to the power of his frightful memories. He recalled Petrov, a handsome and arrogant youth, who could speak about corrupt women completely calmly and indifferently and lectured thus to his comrades: “I will never let myself kiss a corrupt woman. You can only kiss those whom you love and respect, not this scum.” “What if she kisses you?” asked Pavel. “So let her do it! I just turn away.” Pavel smiled bitterly and sadly. He did not know how to act like this Petrov, and he did kiss these women. His lips touched their cold bodies, and once—and it was frightening to recall—he had actually challenged himself and kissed a faded hand reeking of perfume and beer. He kissed it as though he was punishing himself; he did it as though he thought that his kisses could turn this corrupt woman into one who could be pure, beautiful, worthy of the great love that his own heart was craving. And she said: “You are such a smoocher!” And he contracted the illness from her. The illness was shameful and dirty, of which people speak on the sly, in scoffing whispers, hiding behind closed doors, the illness of which one cannot think without horror and disgust toward oneself. Pavel jumped from the bed and came up to the table. There he moved some papers, notebooks; opened them, then closed again, his hands were shaking. His eyes were looking sideways, tensely, at the place in the table where his medications were thoroughly hidden behind papers. “If I had a revolver, I would shoot myself instantly. Right in here . . . ,” he thought, pointing his finger to his left side where his heart was beating [. . .]. “Pavel, open the door!” Lilechka’s voice was heard from behind the door. Startled, he now was afraid of any unexpected cry or sound, Pavel quickly recovered and unwillingly slid the door bolt open. “What do you want?” he asked sullenly. “Just to kiss you. Why do you always lock yourself? Are you afraid you will be kidnapped?” Pavel lay down on bed, and Lilechka, having unsuccessfully tried to sit next to him, said: “Move aside! You are evil: you don’t want to let your little sister sit down.” Pavel moved aside silently. 28 leonid andreyev: in the fog

“I am so bored today,” Lilechka said, “really unwell, too. Probably due to the weather: I love the sun but this is so nasty . . . you want to start biting out of spite.” And, carefully caressing him on his short hair, she looked into his eyes tenderly and asked: “Pavlie, why are you so sad?” “I’ve never been joyful in the first place.” “No, but I mean since we came back from the summer cottage, you’ve been hiding from everyone, you don’t laugh, you never dance any more.” “Stupid pastime.” “But you did before, especially the mazurka—better than anybody. Why is that, Pavlie? Tell me, my dear, my lovely good boy!” And she kissed him on the cheek, next to his reddened ear. “Don’t touch me . . . go away! I am dirty . . .” Lilechka burst out laughing and said tickling his ear: “You are so clean, Pavlie . . . Do you remember we used to take a bath together? You were white like a little piglet, so clean, so very cle-e-e-ean!” “Go away, Lilechka! Please, for God’s sake!” “I won’t, unless you get joyful . . .” “Don’t you touch me! Get out, I am telling you!” Pavel said hiding his face. “I am dirty . . . di-i-i-irty!” he heavily exhaled the painful word and shuddered from head to toe suppressing a sudden sob. “What’s wrong with you, Pavlie, my darling?” Lilechka looked scared. “Do you want me to get Dad?” “No, it’s nothing, nothing wrong. Just a little headache.” Lilechka was petting the back of his head and pensively studying him. Then she said in an indifferent tone: “Yesterday Katya Reymer asked about you.” After a pause Pavel asked without turning around: “What did she ask about?” “Just like how you are, what are you up to, why you never show up at their house. They invited you, didn’t they?” “As if she really needed it . . .” “No, Pavlie, don’t say that! You don’t know her. She is smart and cultured and is interested in you. You think she only likes dancing but she reads a lot and wants to set up a reading circle. She always tells me how smart my brother is.” “She is a flirt and . . . trash.” Lilechka blushed, wrathfully pushed Pavel and rose. “You are vile yourself if you say that.” leonid andreyev: in the fog 29

“Vile? Yes. So what?” Pavel said with a challenge, watching his sister with vicious and gleaming eyes [. . .]. “You are rude, obnoxious, you spoil everyone’s life . . . Egotist!” “She is trash, your Katya . . . you are all trash, riffraff !” Tears flashed in Lilechka’s eyes. She seized the door handle and said, suppressing a tremor in her voice: “I felt sorry for you and that’s why I came. But you don’t deserve it. And I will never come to see you again. You hear me, Pavel?” The back of the head remained immobile. Lilya wrathfully nodded her head and left. With an expression of complete contempt on his face, as though something evil had just departed, Pavel carefully locked the door and walked around the room. He felt easier now that he had scolded Lilechka and Katya and said that they were trash and riffraff. And he began thinking that all women were foul, selfish and limited creatures. Take Lilya. She could not understand how unhappy he was and that was why she scolded him like a market woman would. She is in love with Avdeyev, and the other day she had Petrov visit her, and she had a spat with the maid and with mother as well, after she was unable to find her red ribbon. And Katya Reymer is the same way: she is thoughtful, serious and is interested in him, in Pavel, and says how smart he is but the minute that Petrov comes to see her, she puts on a blue ribbon for him, combs her hair before the mirror and makes a pretty face. And this is all for Petrov—as all the gymnasium knows he is vulgar and dumb. She is clean and can only guess, but does not even let herself think of the fact that depraved women and diseases exist—frightful, disgraceful diseases, which make a man miserable and disgusted with himself to the point that he shoots himself with a revolver, such a young and good person! And she herself wears a dress with deep cleavage and whenever they walk arm in arm, always presses herself against him very closely. Maybe she has already kissed someone . . . Pavel clenched his fists and hissed through his teeth: “What filth!” She must have kissed . . . Pavel did not even dare to glance at her, but she probably had kissed, and most certainly with Petrov, so confident and impudent. And then she will give him her body, and it will experience the same thing as those of depraved women do. What filth! What a miserable life where there is no light at which he could direct his look fogged by sadness and ennui! How could one know, maybe even now Katya already has . . . a lover. 30 leonid andreyev: in the fog

“No way!” Pavel screamed, and something inside him quietly and gloat- ingly continued, and his words were horrifying: “Maybe yes, she does, in love with some sort of a lackey or coachman. Cases are known when such pure girls have lackey lovers, and no one knows about it; everyone thinks of them as pure, but at night they run out on dates, barefoot, on a horribly cold floor. Then they would get married and betray these fellows. The Reymers do have a lackey, a brunet, good- looking too . . . “Or Petrov . . . she would go on a date with him, and he, bold and impudent, would tell her: ‘It’s really cold here—let’s go somewhere where it’s warm!’ And she would go.” He cannot think any further. He is standing by the window as though getting choked on the yellow disgusting fog that is crawling sullenly and powerfully into the room like a shapeless yellow-bellied reptile. Pavel is choked by anger and despair, and still he feels better that not just he himself is foul but everyone is, the whole world. And his disease does not seem so frightening and shameful. “This is all right,” he is thinking. “Petrov has been sick twice, Samoylov even three times; Shmidt and Pomerantsev have recovered and I will recover.” [. . .] But [suddenly] he felt the filth that was surrounding him and penetrat- ing throughout. He began feeling it when first he fell sick. Every Friday he took a bath, twice a week he changed his linen, and everything on him was new, expensive and hardly worn but it seemed as if he were lying in the stinking slops and when he walked, the stench stayed in the air after him for a long time. [. . .] Similarly filthy are his thoughts and it seems if one could open his skull and get his brain out of there, it would be dirty like a rag, like those brains of animals one sees lying in dirt and dung at a slaughterhouse. And all the women, tired, with heavy makeup, with cold and impudent eyes! They haunt him in the street, and he is afraid to go out, especially at night when the city swarms with these women as decaying meat is with worms; they enter his head as into their own dirty room, and he cannot drive them away. When he is asleep and not in control of his feelings and desires, they grow out of the depth of his essence like fiery ghosts; when he is awake, some brutal force takes him into its iron hands, and, blinded, altered, unlike his own self, throws him into the dirty embrace of dirty women. “This is all because I am a libertine,” Pavel thought with calm despair. “But not for long—I will shoot myself soon. Will see Katya Reymer tonight and shoot myself. Or no: I will only overhear her voice from my room, and when they call me to come out, I won’t go.” leonid andreyev: in the fog 31

Heavily dragging his legs, Pavel came up to the window. Something dark, eerie and hopeless, like autumnal sky, was watching him from out there, and it seemed to him that this would never end, and had always been like that, and there was no place on earth for joy and for pure and light calmness. [. . .] “Pavel, open the door!” his father’s voice was heard. Pavel jumped up and the same sharp and acute pain caught his breath. He bent over and pressed his chilly hands to his stomach and clenched his teeth [. . .]. “Pavlusha, are you asleep?” Pavel opened the door. Sergei Andreich came in, a little embarrassedly, a little indecisively but at the same time powerfully, as do fathers who know their right to enter their son’s room at any time but at the same time would like to be gentlemanly about it and respect the privacy of another person’s lodging. “Hey, brother, were you sleeping?” Sergei Andreich asked softly and clumsily patted Pavel on the shoulder. “No, just . . . dozing off a bit,” reluctantly but also softly replied Pavel, still full of quiet calmness and unclear dreams. He realized that his father had come to make peace and thought: “What is all this for?” “Turn on the lamp, please!” father asked. “Only light can save one from this fog . . . I’ve been nervous all day.” “Apologizing . . .” Pavel thought, taking off the glass and lighting a match. Sergei Andreich sat down into the armchair near the table, adjusted the lampshade [. . .]. “Can I borrow a match?” he asked producing a cigarette. He did have his own matches but he intended to give his son the pleasure of obliging him. He lit a cigarette, glanced at Buckle’s black cover and began: “I radically disagree with Tolstoy and other ‘simplifiers’ who fruitlessly fight with civilization and demand that we walk on all fours again. But one cannot but agree that the dark side of civilization instills rather . . .” he lifted his arm and then dropped it, “rather serious misgivings. For instance, if we look at what’s going on even in this beautiful France . . .” Sergei Andreich was an intelligent and good man and thought of the same things that other intelligent and good people of his country and his time thought of; they all went to the same schools and read the same good books, newspapers, and magazines. He was an inspector at the insurance company “Phoenix” and would often leave the capital on business trips; 32 leonid andreyev: in the fog whenever he happened to be at home, he scarcely had enough time to meet with his acquaintances, go to the theater and exhibitions and familiarize himself with new books. And in addition to all this he actually found the time to be with his children, especially with Pavel, whose development— the development of a boy—was high on his agenda. Apart from that, he did not know what to talk about with Lilya and that is why he mostly just was tender with her. He never was this way with Pavel though, as he was a boy, but rather spoke with him always as an adult, as a good friend, never about trifles but always on serious topics. Therefore he considered himself a good father, and whenever he spoke with Pavel, he felt as though he were a professor giving a lecture. And both he and Pavel liked it this way. Even of Pavel’s successes at college he did not dare ask in detail as he was afraid it would jeopardize the harmony of their relationship and downgrade them to the lowly yelling, scolding and reproaching. He was ashamed of his rare outbursts, and for a long time he justified them by his hot temperament. He knew all Pavel’s thoughts, his views, his convictions, and he thought that he knew everything about Pavel. And he was very surprised and upset when he found out that Pavel was not entirely to be found in these views and convictions but somewhere beyond, in some mysterious mood, in filthy drawings, about the genesis of which he had to take his son to task. Sooner or later he had to. And now he was talking very cleverly and positively about the way culture improves particular forms of life, but overall, it left some sort of a dissonance, an empty and dark spot that everyone felt but could not name—and yet there was lack of conviction and roughness in his talk: something sneaking up, slippery and anxiously tormenting him. So he addressed Pavel more often than usually: “What do you think, Pavel? Do you agree, Pavel?” [. . .] Now he finished talking about alcoholics and lit a cigarette with a shaking hand. “Now!” Pavel thought and everything shrank like a black raven with a broken wing in a cage when someone’s bristling hand reaches to it through the little cage door. Sergei Andreich sighed heavily and began: “But there is, Pavel, something more horrifying than alcoholism . . .” “Now!” Pavel thought. “. . . More horrifying than mortal wars, more devastating than plague and cholera . . .” leonid andreyev: in the fog 33

“Now! Now!” Pavel kept thinking, his body shrinking up further and feeling as though he was in ice-cold water. “. . . There is lechery. You, Pavel—have you ever read any books on this interesting issue?” “I will shoot myself !” Pavel thought quickly but said calmly and with decent interest: “No, I have not, not any specialized ones. But I am really interested in this issue, dad.” “Really?” Sergei Andreich’s pince-nez flashed. “Yes, this is a horrifying issue, and I am convinced, Pavel, that the destiny of all cultured humankind depends on this and on finding a solution for this. Really . . . The degradation of entire generations, even entire countries; personality dis- orders with all the horrors of insanity and marasmus . . . So . . . And finally innumerable illnesses destroying body and even soul. You, Pavel, cannot even imagine what a nasty thing such an illness is. Once my university classmate—he later entered the Military Law Academy, one Skvortsov, Aleksandr Petrovich—contracted it in the second year, not a serious case though, but he got so scared that he poured kerosene over himself and set himself on fire. They could hardly save his life.” “Is he alive now, daddy?” “Yes, he certainly is but awfully disfigured. So . . . Professor Berg in his fundamental work provides striking statistical data . . .” They were sitting and talking calmly, like two good friends who struck a very interesting topic. Pavel’s face expressed astonishment and horror; he sometimes exclaimed: “Hell knows what it is! Does not your statistic lie?” And inside he was so deathly calm, as though not a living heart was beating in his chest, as though it was not blood running through his veins because he was cast from a piece of cold and apathetic iron. What he himself thought of the meaning of his illness and his fall was now menacingly affirmed by these books he believed in, smart foreign words and numbers, unflinching and firm as death itself. Someone big, smart and knowing it all was talking about his death from outside, and in the quiet impartiality of his words there was something fatal that did not leave any hope to a miserable person. Sergei Andreich was also joyful; he laughed, made circle-shaped ges- tures, smugly waved his hand—and felt with embarrassment that in the truth of his words there were frightful and elusive lies [. . .]. His hand was impatiently lurking near the side pocket where next to a fifty-ruble ban- knote there was the crumpled drawing. “Now I am going to ask him, when we are through with this,” he was thinking. 34 leonid andreyev: in the fog

But at this moment Pavel’s mother came in, a plump beautiful woman with a powdered face and Lilechka-like eyes, grey and naïve. She had just arrived home, and her cheeks and nose were red from cold. “What an awful weather!” she said. “The fog again, one can see nothing. Yefim almost hit someone at the corner.” “So you were saying, seventy percent?” Pavel kept asking his father. “Yes, seventy-two percent. Well, how was it at the Sokolovs?” Sergei Andreich inquired of his wife. “Not much, as usual. Bored. Anechka is a bit sick. Tomorrow night they want to come see us . . .” She looked around at their joyful faces, friendly poses and patted her son on the cheek; he, as usual, caught her hand in the air and kissed it. He loved his mother when he saw her; and when she was out, he completely forgot about her existence [. . .]. “You have been chatting, haven’t you?” she joyfully studied the father and son. “Well, I am very glad. It is so unpleasant when father and son are in the sulks. Just like [in the novel] ‘Fathers and Sons.’ [. . .]” Yulia Petrovna went out, and Sergei Andreich stepped toward his son. Pavel, also unwittingly, stepped forward and asked sullenly: “What?” Now they were standing facing each other, openly and directly, and everything that has been said before seemed to have left for somewhere, never to be back again: Professor Berg, statistics, seventy-two percent . . . “Pavel, Pavlusha! Lilechka told me that you were upset about something. And I also notice that you have changed lately. Do you have any problems in college?” “No. Nothing’s wrong with me.” Sergei Andreich wanted to say: “My son!” but it seemed artificial and uneasy and so he said: “My friend!” Pavel was silent and, having put his hands in the pockets, was looking sideways. Sergei Andreich blushed, adjusted his pince-nez with a shaking hand and produced his wallet. Squeamishly, with two fingers, he pulled out the crumpled drawing and handed it to Pavel. “What is it?” Pavel asked. “You look!” Over his shoulder, not taking his hands out of the pockets, Pavel looked. The paper was dancing in Sergei Andreich’s plump white hand, but Pavel recognized it and instantly felt a burning shame. Something roared and rattled in his ears, like a thousand stones falling from a mountain; his eyes leonid andreyev: in the fog 35 felt like they had been set on fire, and he could neither stop looking at Sergei Andreich nor close his eyes. “Is that yours?” the father asked somewhere from afar. And with sudden spite Pavel proudly and openly replied: “Yes, that’s mine!” Sergei Andreich dropped the drawing and it quietly fell down on the floor. Then he turned around and quickly left the room; his loud, moving away voice was heard from the dining room: “Have dinner without me! I must go out on business.” And Pavel went to the washstand and began pouring water over his hands and face, not feeling either the cold or the water. “I am sick and tired of them!” he was whispering as the stream was hitting his eyes and mouth. After dinner, around eight, Lilechka’s fellow gymnasium students came, and [. . .] the piano sounds were heard from the drawing room. Smooth and light like a dance but also oddly mournful and sad, they were circling over Pavel’s head like quiet voices from some alien, beautiful and forever- abandoned world. Lilechka ran in, all pink from dancing. Her clean forehead was wet, and her eyes were shining; her school dress pleats seemed to have retained the traces of rhythmic movements. “Pavlie! I am not mad at you!” she said and quickly kissed him with her hot lips pouring a current of similarly hot and fresh breath all over him. “Let’s go dance! Quick!” “I don’t want to.” “Too bad not everyone came: no Katya, no Lidochka, and Pospelov pre- ferred to go to the theater. Let’s go, Pavlie, right now!” “I will never go dancing.” “That is stupid! Let’s go fast! Do come out, I will wait for you.” In the doorway she felt sorry for her brother, so she went back, kissed him once again and, now at ease, ran away. Pavel shut the door and began pacing around the room making big steps. “She never showed up!” he was saying loudly. “Never showed up!” he repeated circling around the room. “Never showed up!” A knock on the door came, and Petrov’s smug, impudent voice was heard: “Pavel, open it up!” Pavel stood still and held his breath. “Pavel, quit being silly! Open up! Liliya Sergeyevna sent me.” Pavel was silent. Petrov knocked once again and said calmly: 36 leonid andreyev: in the fog

“You are such a pig, brother! Still wet behind the ears . . . Katen’ka didn’t show up, so he is out of sorts now. What a fool!” “And this Petrov has the audacity to say “Katen’ka” with his dirty mouth,” [Pavel thought]. Having waited for a minute as they had started playing music again, Pavel carefully looked out into the empty dining room, went through it and near the bathroom, where all the unused clothing was stacked, picked up his old summer overcoat. Then he quickly went to the kitchen and through the back door went down to the yard and from there to the street. He instantly felt damp, cold and uncomfortable as though he descended to the bottom of a huge cellar where the air was immobile and stuffy and wood lice were crawling around slippery high walls. And it came about unexpectedly that in this leaden, rot-reeking fog some kind of its own, irrepressible, cheerful life continues to pass; that it exists in the clatter of invisible carriages and in huge, fuzzy white balls, in the center of which street lamps glow dimly and evenly; it is in the hasty, shapeless contours [of people] resembling blotted-out ink stains on paper that grow out of the fog and then disappear again into it, and are often perceived only by a strange feeling that warns one of the proximity of another human. Some- one invisible pushed Pavel quickly and did not apologize; some woman caught him with her elbow and looked at his face steadily. Pavel shivered and viciously recoiled from her. In a deserted side street, across from Katya Reymer’s house, he stopped. He would often go here and now he came again, in order to show how unhappy and lonely he was and how mean it was of Katya not to come to him in this minute of deathly ennui and horror. In the dimly lit windows one could see a wild and evil smirk, as though someone satiated sitting at a feast table were staring at a hungry person and lazily smiling. Choking on the rotten fog, shivering from cold in his old overcoat, Pavel studied this stare intensely and hated it. He vividly saw Katya Reymer: the way she, pure and innocent, sits around with these clean people and smiles, and reads a good book, and knows nothing about the street, in the mud and cold of which there stands a dying man. She is pure but mean in her purity; maybe she is dreaming of a noble hero right now, and if Pavel went to her room and told her: “I am dirty, I am sick, I am depraved, and therefore I am unhappy; I am dying, help me!”—she would squeamishly turn away and say: “Go away! I am sorry for you but you are disgusting to me. Go away!” And then she would weep, pure and kind, she would leonid andreyev: in the fog 37 weep . . . sending him away. And with the alms of her pure tears and proud pity she would kill the person who asked her for human love . . . “I hate you!” whispered the strange, shapeless blot of a man enveloped by the fog and thrown out from the live world by it. “I hate you!” Someone passed by without noticing Pavel. He frightfully pressed himself against the wet wall and moved only after the steps had died. “I hate you!” [. . .] The Neva was freezing hopelessly under the heavy fog and was silent, as if dead; not a single whistle of a steamer, not a splash of water could be heard from its broad and dark surface. Pavel sat down on one of the semi-round benches and pressed his back against the moist and quietly cold granite. He began shivering again, and his frozen fingers would not bend; his arms and hands felt numb, but the idea of going home made him sick: in music and in other people’s having fun there was something reminiscent of Katya Reymer, something absurd and offensive like the smile of a passerby during a funeral. Dim shadows of people were floating by Pavel in the fog; one had a little fiery spot instead of his head, evidently a lit cigarette; another had hard leather galoshes on his feet and they loudly knocked against the pavement at each step . . . One shadow stopped indecisively; it had the disproportionately huge head of an ugly and unreal shape, and when it moved on toward Pavel, it gave him the creeps. As it got close, the head turned out to be a large hat with bent white feathers; the shadow itself became an ordinary woman. Just like Pavel, she was shivering from cold and vainly hiding her large hands in the little pockets of her woolen jacket: while she had been standing, she had appeared short, but when she sat down next to Pavel, she was almost head and shoulders above him. “Hey, young and handsome, lend me a cigarette!” she asked. “Sorry, young and pretty, I don’t smoke,” replied Pavel rudely and excitedly. The woman giggled noisily, clanked her teeth from cold, and breathed at Pavel, reeking of wine. “Let’s go to my place,” she said; her voice was as loud as her laughter. “Let’s go! You will treat me to some vodka!” Something wide, swirling and quick as a fall from a mountain slope opened itself in front of Pavel, some yellow lights amid oscillating darkness, some promise of a strange joy, insanity and tears. And on the outside he was pierced by the damp fog, and his elbows were freezing. And with politeness that comprised challenge, mockery and tears of mortal despair, he said: 38 leonid andreyev: in the fog

“Ah, goddess! Do you want my passionate caresses so much?” The woman felt insulted; she turned away angrily, clanked her teeth and fell silent having wrathfully pursed her thin lips. A little while ago, she was thrown out from a bar for refusing to drink sour beer, and so she splashed it at a customer; her high galoshes had holes and leaked, and because of all that she wanted to feel offended and to scold someone. Pavel saw her angry profile with its short nose and broad meaty chin, and he smiled. She was just like those women who haunted him, and it was funny to him, and some odd feeling made him feel close to her. And he liked it that she was angry. The woman turned and uttered abruptly: “So? To go means to go, what the hell!” And Pavel replied with laughter: “You are right, madam: what the hell! Why the hell not go and drink vodka and give ourselves to refined pleasures?” The woman freed her hand from the pocket, and slightly angrily but in a friendly way slapped him on the shoulder: “You can talk until you’re blue in the face! Well, I will go first and you behind.” “Why?” Pavel wondered. “Why behind, but not next to you, my goddess . . . ,” he stumbled a little, “Katya?” “My name is Manechka. Because my going next to you would be shameful for you.” Pavel caught her arm and pulled it, and the woman’s shoulder clumsily hit his chest. She was laughing and walking out of step, and now it was obvious that she was a bit drunk. By the gate of a house she freed her arm and, having taken a ruble from Pavel, went to the yardman to get vodka. “Please come back soon, Katen’ka!” Pavel begged, losing her contours in the dark and hazy gateway. From afar he heard: “Manechka, not Katya!” A streetlight was on, and Pavel pressed his cheek against its cold, wet pole and closed his eyes. His face was immobile like that of a blind man, and inside him it was calm and quiet like at a cemetery. Such a minute happens to someone sentenced to death, when he has been blindfolded and the sound of fussy steps around him has ceased, and in ominous silence the great mystery of death is already half open to him. And somewhere far away, just like the roll of a drum, he heard a muffled voice: “That’s where you are. And I was looking and looking for you . . . I grab this one, than that one—neither was you. I thought you were gone and wanted to leave me.” leonid andreyev: in the fog 39

Pavel tightened up, tossed something off himself and threw in a joyous and loud question: “How about some vodka though? The most important thing is some vodka! For what are we, you and I, Katen’ka, without vodka?” “What’s your name anyway? I wanted to call you by your name but you never told me.” “My name, Katechka, strange as it may seem, is Percent. I mean, Per- cent. You can call me Little Percent. So it would be more tender, and our intimate relationship permits it.” Pavel was dragging the woman along. “There’s no name like that. They only call dogs like that.” “Far from it, Katechka! Even my father calls me this: Little Percent, Little Percent! I swear to Professor Berg and the sacred statistics!” The fog and lights were moving by Pavel, and again the woman’s shoulders were pressed against his chest and the large bent feather on her hat—just like the one they use to decorate hearses—was dangling before his eyes. Then something black, rotten, foul-reeking surrounded them; a few stairs began, first up and then down. At some point Pavel almost fell and the woman supported him. Then they entered a stuffy room, in which it smelled like a cobbler’s shop and sour cabbage soup; an icon lamp was alight, and behind a printed cotton curtain someone was snoring jerkily and angrily. “Hush!” the woman whispered, leading Pavel by the hand. “The landlord is sleeping here, devil, cobbler, lost soul!” Pavel was afraid of this cobbler who was snoring there, and he stepped in cautiously with his heavy wet galoshes. Then instantly came deep darkness, the sound of a removed glass and instantly the bright, blinding glare of a small lamp on the wall. Behind the lamp there was a little table, on which there was a comb with thin hair tangled between the cogs, dry slices of bread, a large knife with bread crumbs stuck to it, and a deep plate on the bottom of which there were potato rounds and chopped onions under a layer of yellow sunflower oil. And this table attracted all of Pavel’s attention. “Now we are home!” Manechka said. “Get undressed!” They sat around, laughed and drank, and Pavel was embracing the half-naked woman with one arm: her fat white shoulder with a stripe of her dirty undershirt and a broken button was right before his eyes, and he was greedily kissing and sucking onto it with moist, hot lips. Then he kissed her face, which, oddly, he was unable to have a good look at or to memorize. While he was looking at it, it seemed familiar, down to the last little feature, the little pimple on the temple, but when he turned away 40 leonid andreyev: in the fog he would immediately forget it, as though his soul did not want to accept this image and forcefully pushed it out. “I will tell you this,” the woman was saying trying to remove a long hair from the potato and at times indifferently kissing Pavel’s cheek with her oily lips, “ I will tell you one thing: I am not going to drink sour beer. Give it to anyone, go ahead, but not to me. Yes, I am a bitch, this is true, but I won’t drink sour beer. And let me tell everyone openly, I swear to God, I won’t!” “Let’s sing, Katechka!” Pavel was pleading. “And if you don’t like it that I splashed it into your mug, go ahead and go to the police station, but I will not let you beat me. I have a proud character, and have seen thousands like you, maybe, and so never was afraid of any,” the woman said, addressing the bar customer who had offended her. “Skip it, Katechka, forget it!” Pavel begged. “I believe you that you are proud like the Queen of Spain, and that’s wonderful. Let’s sing! Good songs, only good songs!” “I am not Katechka, I am Manechka. And you can’t sing here: my landlord, the devil, cobbler, lost soul, will not allow it.” “Doesn’t matter, Manechka or Katechka. Honest to God, doesn’t matter—this is what I, Pavel Rybakov, a drunk and a libertine, am saying to you. You love me, don’t you, my proud queen?” “I do. But I won’t let you call me Katechka,” the woman was insisting. “There you go!” Pavel shook his head. “Let us sing! We will sing good songs that they sing . . . Ah, I know one good song! But you can’t sing it like this. Close your eyes, Katen’ka, close your eyes and imagine that you are in the forest and it’s very, very dark . . .” “I don’t like it in the forest. What forest are you talking about? Tell me, and not about the forest! To hell with it! Let’s drink, rather, and don’t upset me like this, I don’t like it,” she said sullenly, pouring and splashing vodka around. She evidently was short-winded and was breathing heavily and labori- ously, as though she were swimming in deep waters. And her lips became thinner and a little blue. “It is a dark, dark night!” Pavel continued with closed eyes. “And there we go, and you are going with me too, and someone starts singing beauti- fully . . . Hold on, what was it? ‘You told me: yes, I am in love with you!’ No, I can’t, I can’t sing.” leonid andreyev: in the fog 41

“Don’t yell—you will wake up the landlord! What the hell!” “I can’t sing, I can’t!” Pavel said in despair and embraced his head. Fire stripes were entangling and disentangling in front of his closed eyes, swirled in their bizarre and horrid ornaments, and it felt broad like in a field and stuffy like at the bottom of a narrow and deep pit. Manechka was looking at him contemptuously above her shoulder and saying: “Drink, what the hell!” “Yes, I love you, I love you . . . No, I can’t!” His wide open eyes burned the woman’s face. “You do have a heart? Right, Katechka, you do? Give me your hand! Give it to me!” He smiled through the tears and pressed his lips against the resistant hand. “Quit fooling around!” the woman said wrathfully and pulled away her hand. “Got upset, you milksop! If we sleep then we sleep, or I will show you!” “Katechka, Katechka!” he was whispering pleadingly and his tears pre- vented him from seeing the sleepy and vicious face that was looking at him in disgust. “Katechka, my lovely darling, please have pity for me! I am so unhappy, I have nothing, nothing at all. My God, please have pity, Katechka!” The woman abruptly pushed him away and rose unsteadily. “Go to the devil!” she screamed, choking. “I hate you! . . . He got drunk like a skunk and now is posing here! ‘Katechka, Katechka!’ ” she teased him pursing her thin bluish lips. “I know what kind of Katechka you need. Get out and go to her place! Smooching and then: Katechka, Katechka! Ugh, you puppy, miserable brat, what a clown! He shouldn’t be allowed to see a woman, and he goes: ‘Katechka, Katechka!’ ” Having lowered his head and nodding rhythmically, Pavel was whispering something and the back of his head was trembling. “You hear me, or what?” the woman screamed. Pavel glanced at her with wet and unseeing eyes and started swinging left and right as if he had a toothache. Frowning spitefully, the woman came up to the bed and began fixing it. Her thin cotton skirt fell down and she tossed it aside with her legs. “Katechka, Katechka!” she repeated angrily, crumpling the pillow. “So go to your Katechka! I was baptized as Manechka, and brats like you I have seen in thousands, and never was afraid of them. Phew! He thinks he gave me a ruble and now I will show him some tricks. I maybe have three rubles in the little box over there. Go to bed now, will you!” 42 leonid andreyev: in the fog

She lay down on top of the blanket and looked at Pavel loathingly, at the short-cut hair on the back of his head, trembling from his crying. “Ouch, I am sick and tired of those filthy bastards. Sick to death. Why are you moaning? Scared of your little mommy?” she asked with a lazy and vicious sneer. “She will give you a flogging, right? Scared but you like the sweets, don’t you? I know you, all these Percents, devils. He is ashamed to tell me his name, so he makes one up. Percent! Just like a dog. And then he will go to his snotty Katechka and have her call him ‘Vasechka’: ‘Vasechka, my darling!’ And he will go like: ‘Katechka, my little angel!’ I know you, know your type. Check this: he kissed my hand and then with this same hand you get it in the face from him! Don’t laugh, you brat, don’t laugh!” Pavel was silent and quietly shivered. “Go to bed, I am telling you! Or I will throw you out of here, I swear to God! I don’t care for the two rubles, but I won’t let you humiliate me. You hear me, get undressed! He thinks he gives a woman two rubles and now he owns her! Check this out, a new tsar is here!” Pavel slowly unbuttoned his jacket and began taking it off. “You don’t get it . . .” he mumbled not looking in her direction. “There we go!” she screamed spitefully. “I am such a fool that I can’t understand anything. And what if I come up to you and hit you in the mug?” Some husky, irritated bass cried menacingly from behind the partition: “Mashka! You bitch, you are at it again, aren’t you? Don’t you screw around, or I will give you hell!” “Hush, you scum!” Pavel whispered getting pale. “You just called me scum?” the woman hissed rising. “Okay, okay, lie down!” Pavel said peacefully, not taking his burning eyes off her naked body. “I am coming, right now, right now . . .” “I am scum?” the woman repeated and lost her breath splashing her saliva. “Stop it, stop it please!” Pavel pleaded, his fingers shaking and not finding the buttons; he could only see her body—this frightful and obscure in its power body of the woman that he saw in his nightmares, that was so abhorrent up that he thumped it with his feet and at the same time as enticing as water in a puddle for a thirsty man. “Stop it!” he repeated. “I was joking . . .” “Get out!” the woman stated resolutely waving her arm. “Get out, get out, you brat!” leonid andreyev: in the fog 43

Their eyes met, and both sets were burning with unbridled hatred, as fierce and profound as though these two ailing souls had been enemies for their entire lives and now finally had a chance to confront each other. Pavel felt scared. He lowered his eyes and mumbled: “Listen, Manechka, please understand . . .” “Aha!” the woman happily bared her wide white teeth. “Aha! Now I am Manechka all of a sudden! Get out! Out!” She hopped off the bed and, staggering, showing Pavel her fat hairy neck, began lifting his jacket. “Out! Out of here!” “You hear me, devil!” Pavel screamed ferociously. And now something unexpected and wild happened: the drunk and half-naked woman, red from rage, tossed away the jacket, swung her arm and hit Pavel on the cheek. He seized her by the undershirt, tore it apart, and the two of them rolled onto the floor in a ball. They were rolling around, knocking into chairs and dragging the blanket behind them; they seemed one strange creature that had four legs and four arms fiercely catching and strangling one another. Sharp nails were scratching Pavel’s face, pressing into his eyes; for one second he could see the enraged face with savage eyes in front of his, it was red like blood; and he was strangling someone’s throat as hard as he could. The following second he disentangled from the woman and jumped to his feet. “You bitch!” he screamed wiping off his bloodied face. And someone was breaking into the door and yelling: “Open it up! Demons, you bastards!” But the woman attacked Pavel from behind, knocked him off his feet, and again they were rolling on the floor, choking, unable to scream as they were losing breath in fury. They got up, fell down, and then got up again. Pavel knocked the woman onto the table, and a plate cracked under her heavy weight, while next to Pavel’s hand the long knife covered with bread crumbs clanked. Pavel seized it with his left hand and thrust it somewhere sideways. The thin blade bent. He thrust it for the second time, and the woman’s arms moved and then instantly loosened up like rags. Her eyes almost leaving their orbits, she screamed into Pavel’s face hoarsely and piercingly, all at one note, just like animals scream when they are getting slaughtered: “A-a-a-a!” “Shut up!” Pavel wheezed, and then thrust the knife again somewhere, and then again. At each blow the woman was shaking like a toy clown 44 leonid andreyev: in the fog on a thread, and opened her mouth wide showing her teeth, amid which there were little bubbles of bloody foam. She was silent now but Pavel still heard her piercing, awful howling, and he wheezed: “Shut up!” Having moved the knife from his wet and slippery left hand to the right, he stabbed her again from above, and then one more time. “Shut up!” The body fell from the table heavily and hit the floor with the hairy back of the head. Pavel bent down and looked at it: the naked high belly was still rising, and Pavel poked it with the knife as they do to a bubble to let the air out. Then he straightened up and with the knife in his hand, all red like a butcher, with his lip torn apart in the fight, turned to the door. He had dimly expected screaming, a lot of noise, fierce cries, ire and revenge—but the strange silence struck him. There was not a sound, not a rustle, not a sigh. The pendulum was swinging inside the clock, but no sound of it was heard; thick drops of blood were leaking down from the knife’s blade but they did not make any sound either. It was as though all the sounds in the world had abruptly ceased and died. Something mysterious and frightful was happening with the closed door. It was noiselessly blowing up—just like the belly he had poked—then shivering in silent agony and then slowly subsiding. And then blowing up again, and shivering, and subsiding, and each time the dark crack up above it was becoming wider and more ominous. There was unfathomable horror in this mute and menacing onslaught— horror and frightening force, as if the whole alien, incomprehensible and evil world were silently and ferociously breaking through this flimsy door. Hastily and with concentration Pavel tossed off the sticky rags of his shirt from his chest and stabbed himself with the knife into the side where the heart was. For a few seconds he was still on his feet and gazed with enlarged shining eyes at the door blowing up spasmodically. Then he bent forward, squatted, as if playing leapfrog, and fell down . . . That night, right up until dawn, the cold city was choking in the leaden fog. Deserted and silent were its deep streets, and in the garden devastated by autumn, there were lonely, sad flowers dying quietly upon their broken stems. Aleksandr Kuprin Seasickness

Fig. 3 Aleksandr Kuprin

Kuprin (1870–1938) wrote a lot about sexual love at the turn of the century and is still remembered as a neo-Romantic author of novellas about adventure and adventure-seekers, yet with a sentimental flavor: such works as The Garnet Bracelet, The Duel, and The Witch (Olessya) are widely read in Russia to this day. The short novel Sulamith (1905) was an interesting phenomenon in the erotic prose of the Silver Age. The Pit (1915) was a serialized novel about the phenomenon of prostitution in Russia. Both novels explore pleasurable and deviant sexuality in unprecedented ways, quite different from earlier and contemporaneous contributions from Chekhov, Andreyev and even Sologub and in a lively dialogue with Vasilii Rozanov. Kuprin’s shorter fiction includes novella Seasickness (1908). It is one of the few Russian literary works that address the issue of rape in a straightforwardly realist mode, without any moralistic slant or melodramatics. Yet more importantly, the author attempts to represent the painful experience of a violent group rape from a woman’s, i.e., a victim’s, perspective. Yelena’s story is actually a bitter and biting satire of then-fashionable (among revolutionary radicals) “spiritual” or “celibate” marriages that remained unconsummated. Following Rozanov, Kuprin clearly tries to attack such sexless unions as leading nowhere, showing that human sexuality 46 aleksandr kuprin: seasickness cannot be disposed with in this fashion. He also attempts to jettison the concept of a progressive “new woman” (that Yelena evidently is) as a non- sexual being whose gender equality with men is achieved at the expense of her sexuality.1

I

The sea in the harbor was of a dirty-green color, and the remote sandy spit that cut into it at the horizon appeared softly purple. At the wharf it smelled rotten fish and resin rope. It was six in the evening. The bell rang for the third time on the deck. The steamer’s whistle blew hoarsely as it had a cold and could not produce a real sound. Finally it managed to cough through it, and it roared with such a low, powerful sound that all the bowels of the gigantic vessel trembled in their dark deepness. It roared for too long. Having pressed their palms against the ears, women on the steamer were laughing, screwing up their eyes and lowering their heads. Those talking were screaming but it seemed as though they were just moving their lips and smiling. When the whistle finally stopped, everyone felt so easy and excitingly joyful as it happens only in the last minutes before a steamer’s departure. “Well, good-bye, comrade Yelena,” Vasyutinsky said. “Now they will remove the gangway. I have to go.” “Bye, my dear,” Travina said, offering her handshake. “Thank you for everything, for everything. In your circle you feel reborn in your soul.” “And thank you, my darling. You really warmed us up. We are, you know, more of theorists, book-smarts, but you splashed us with an elixir of life.” He squeezed her hand as if with a pump, painfully gripping her finger with a wedding ring on it. “Don’t be afraid of the rocking,” he said. “Near Tarkhankut you will actually get rocked a little but you will just lie down on a berth, and all will be just fine. My kind regards to your spouse and sovereign. Tell him we are waiting for his little brochure impatiently. If we can’t get it published here, we will publish it abroad . . . You must be missing him, right?”

1 Russian original: Kuprin, Alexandre. «Морская болезнь» (1908). Русский рассказ XX века. Сост. В. Сорокин. Москва: Захаров, 2005. 102–126. aleksandr kuprin: seasickness 47 he asked without letting her hand free and looking into her eyes with endearing slyness. Yelena smiled. “Yes, a little bit.” “There you go. I can see it. It is no joke, pray—you haven’t seen each other for ten days! Well, addio, mio carissimo amico. Say hi to all the Yalta friends. I swear to God, you are such a lovely she-human. Bye now. All the best.” He stepped back to the wharf and stood right across from Yelena who was leaning her elbows against the beech rails of the ship’s side. The wind was blowing his grey caped cloak apart, and with his tall height and extraordinary skinniness, a sharp little beard and long graying hair fluttering from under his wide brimmed black hat, he seemed to have something good-naturedly belligerent and comic in his appearance that did resemble a Don Quixote dressed in the style of a radical from the 1870s. And so when Yelena looked at him from up above she thought of the limitless kindness and spiritual childlike purity of this somewhat funny man, of the long years of hard labor he had to endure, of his steely firmness in their common cause, of his boundless faith in impending freedom, of his tremendous influence on the youth—and she felt something infinitely valuable, endearing and beautiful in his comicalness. Vasyutinsky was her husband’s first supervisor in his revolutionary pursuits. And now, smiling at him from above and nodding her head, she felt sorry she hadn’t kissed his hand goodbye and called him a teacher. He would have been so embarrassed, poor man! The lifting crane went up for the last time, as if it were a gigantic fish- ing rod, pulling up at the end of its chain a swinging and rotating mass of suitcases and trunks. “All ready!” someone yelled from below. “Take off the gangway!” a voice in the deckhouse responded and piped all hands on deck. The porters in dark blue vests lifted the gangway from both ends onto their shoulders and carried it aside. Something under the steamer seethed and roared. A dirty-faced, ragged little girl with a flower basket offering flowers to those seeing the travelers off was passing by along the wharf wailing like a beggar: “Si-i-ir, buy some flowe-e-eehs!” Vasyutinsky picked a small bouquet of half-faded violets from her basket and threw it upwards, over the rails, hitting some venerable gray-haired 48 aleksandr kuprin: seasickness man’s hat in the process; the man was so startled that he apologized. Yel- ena lifted the flowers and looking at Vasyutinsky with a smile, pressed them against her lips. Meanwhile the steamer, urged by the whistles and commands, spitting out cascades of foamy water from the holes on its sides down below, did noticeably separate itself from the wharf. As though a large wise beast conscious of its immeasurable power and afraid of it, it cautiously, sideways was pulling away from the shore making its way to the free space. For a long time Yelena was watching Vasyutinsky who was standing tall over the people next to him. He would rhythmically lift and drop his gang- ster-like hat over his head. Yelena responded by waving her headscarf. Gradually, however, all the people on the wharf merged into one dark solid mass, over which, as if a swarm of multicolored butterflies, headscarves, hats and umbrellas were oscillating. In Yalta the Easter season was in full swing, and that’s why the steamer was filled with people. The whole stern, all the passageways between the sides and passenger cabins, all the benches and capstans, corridors and sofas in the saloons were heaped up with people, packages, suitcases, and outerwear. Infants were screaming importunately and boringly; steamer waiters were increasing the crush rushing to and fro all over without any need; women, as they always would do in public places, got stuck with their chatter right where the crush was the worst—in doorways, in narrow passages; they obstinately blocked everyone’s way without letting anyone go through. It was hard to imagine how all this mass would be lodged. But slowly it all subsided, calmed down and got in order, and when the steamer reached the middle of the harbor and, being no longer ashamed of its own cautiousness, was moving at full speed, the deck became spacious.

II

Travina was standing on the stern looking back at the departing town that was rising like a white amphitheater over the mountains and getting crowned with a half-circle of thin pillars. Her eye could clearly discern the spot where the quiet, deep dark-blue color of the sea transitioned to the liquid and muddy green of the harbor. Far by the shore, as though a leaf- less forest, masts, chimneys and yards of the ships were rising. The sea was ruffled. Down by the propeller the water was foaming in lumps white as a milkshake; far away behind the steamer, amid the smooth broad blueness, aleksandr kuprin: seasickness 49 a narrow green little path was winding, furrowed, like marble, with foamy white intricate trickles. White seagulls, infrequently and heavily waving their wings, were flying in the opposite direction toward the land. There was no rocking yet, but Yelena, who had not managed to have lunch in the town and had hoped to eat onboard, suddenly felt that she had lost all appetite. Then she went downstairs, into the depth of cabin departments, and asked a chambermaid to give her a berth. It turned out, however, that all berths were taken. Blushing with shame for herself and the other person, she took a ruble out of her purse and clumsily handed it to the chambermaid. She rejected it. “I would, Miss, with all my pleasure, but I swear to God there is not a single little berth left. I even let one lady use my own one. After Sevastopol there will be more room.” Yelena went back to the deck. The strong wind blowing in the opposite direction was wrapping her dress around her and made her lean forward and hold the rim of her hat with her hand. An old, small, red-nosed boatswain was fixing some copper cylindrical tool with a clock dial and hands to the right side of the stern. In his left hand he held a bundle of white firm cord rolled into correct spirals and with a copper little weight with blades on the sides attached to its end. Having fixed the copper tool tightly to the side, the boatswain let the weight fall plumb, quickly rolled it with his right hand so that it would form a full flying circle with the end of the cord, and then tossed it suddenly backwards, in the direction of the green and white path from under the propeller. And in the way the little weight was whistling as it made a long arch, in the speed with which the rolled spirals were running off the boatswain’s left hand and, most importantly, in the businesslike casual- ness with which he did it, Yelena sensed the special, unique sea dog dan- dyism. She had an extraordinarily alert eye for such details. Then, when the little weight, having gone out of sight, fell plop into the water far behind the steamer, the boatswain inserted the free end with a hook he had in his hand into the back side of the tool. “What is this?” Travina asked. “A log!” the boatswain replied angrily. But, having turned around and seen her nice childlike face, he added in a softer voice: “This is a log, Miss. That is, the pen is whirling in the water as it has wings, and this is why the log-line rotates. And here are rackwheels and a pointer. We can in fact see where the pointer is and know how many knots 50 aleksandr kuprin: seasickness we got. So we hid this shore, and will open the other one only tomorrow. This is called a log, Miss.” Yelena had been married for two years but she was often called “miss” which at times flattered and at other times angered her. She indeed looked like an eighteen-year-old girl with her slender, flexible figure, a small bosom, and narrow hips, in her simple costume of white, somewhat yellowish crude Caucasian fabric, in her simple English straw hat with a black velvet ribbon. A captain’s mate, a stumpy, broad-chested, thick-legged young brunet in a white short naval jacket was checking tickets. Yelena noticed him as she was boarding the steamer. Back then he stood on the deck on one side of the gangway, with a sea cadet, a nautical school student, a slim, nimble and slender in his seaman’s little jacket boy, fidgety as a young monkey. They both feasted their eyes on boarding women and made funny faces to each other behind their backs, nodding their heads, raising their eyebrows and winking. Yelena noticed all this from a distance. She hated these Eastern pretty faces, like the one this mate had, to the point of trembling. Apparently he was a Greek with puffy, almost never closed lips, with a chin blue from constant shaving of his thick bristle, with a thin ring-like mustache, with brown and black eyes resembling over-roasted coffee beans, always languishing, as if in love ecstasy, and meaningfully senseless. But she also felt it was humiliating to pass by male strangers in such instances having lowered her eyes, blushing and pretending she did not notice anything. Which was why when Yelena stepped from the gangway over to the deck, and her way was obstructed by this sailor from one side and an old fat woman with bags in both hands who had lost breath after the climb and was swaying from side to side without moving forward, from the other, she indifferently looked at the victorious brunet and said as they say to sluggish servants: “Kindly step aside!” And she took pleasure in seeing that playful swagger instantly disappeared from his face due to her confident derogatory tone and the way he hastily, without any hesitation, jumped sideways. And now he approached Yelena who was standing by the side and, giving her the ticket back, intentionally—as she immediately realized— touched her palm with hot tickling skin of his fingers and held her hand, maybe just for a split second longer than was necessary. And, having turned his eyes from her wedding ring to her face and smiling ingratiat- ingly, he asked with politeness that only pretended to be high-society: aleksandr kuprin: seasickness 51

“Beg your pardon! You seem to travel with your spouse?” “No, I am by myself,” Yelena replied and turned away from him toward the sea. But at this moment she felt dizzy a bit because the deck under her feet suddenly appeared oddly unstable, while her own body seemed unusually light. She sat down on the edge of the bench. The town was scarcely showing up white in the distance in its golden and dusty shining, and now it was impossible to fancy it standing on a hill. To the left a low, pinkish shore was stretching up flatly and disappearing into the sea.

III

The mate several times had walked by her; first alone, then with his buddy, a sailor too, in a jacket with golden buttons. And although she did not look at him, every time with her side vision she saw him twirling his mustache and looking at her intently with the melting lamblike gaze of his black eyes. She even overheard him say those words intended, most probably, for her to overhear: “Damn! This is some woman! I can see that!” “Yeah, some broad!” the other one said. She stood up in order to change her position and sit on the opposite side but her legs did not obey her and she suddenly was tossed sideways, toward a spare compass wrapped in sailcloth. She hardly managed to catch it and remain on her feet. Only then she realized that a real, serious rocking had begun. She labored her way to the bench at the opposite side and fell down on it. It got dark. At the very top of the mast a lonely electric light was turned on, and instantly the lights all over the steamer were on. The glass cabin over the first-class saloon and the smoking room began shining warmly and cozily. It was as though it got chillier on the deck. A strong wind was blowing from where Yelena was sitting; tiny salty splashes once in a while would reach her face and touch her lips, but she did not want to stand up. An agonizing, prolonged, nagging feeling of some repulsive tickling began in her chest and stomach, and it made her forehead cold, while her mouth was being filled with watery biting saliva. The deck was very slowly rising with its front end on top, would stop for a moment in some shaky balance and, having suddenly trembled, would start falling down faster and faster, and then, having seemingly touched the water, would go up 52 aleksandr kuprin: seasickness again. It seemed to breathe—at one moment swelling up, at another subsiding—and in relation to these motions Yelena felt that her body would at one moment become heavy and flattened against the bench and at another would acquire unusual nasty lightness and instability. And these alternating changes were most painful of anything Yelena had ever experienced in her life. The town and shore had long disappeared from view. The eye would freely, without any obstacles, embrace the arch-like line locking the sky and the sea together. In the distance white little lambs were running in unsmooth rows, and down below, near the steamer, the water would swing back and forth in long sliding pits and, soaring up, would get curled into white foamy shells. “Pardon, madam,” she heard a voice from up above her. She turned around and saw that very swarthy mate. He was looking at her with his sweet, melting, rolled back eyes and saying, “I am really sorry but I will let myself give you advice. Don’t look downward, this is much worse, your head gets dizzy because of this. You’d better look at some immobile point. For example, at a star. But best of all, you should lie down.” “I thank you, I don’t need anything,” Yelena said turning away from him. But he did not leave and went on talking in an ingratiating, effete voice, in which the customary tone of a steamer seducer was felt. “Would you forgive me please for approaching you like this, without having had the honor of . . . But your personality is delightfully familiar to me. May I learn if you took the last trip to Odessa with us? M-m-m-may I sit down?” “Thanks a lot,” she said, getting up and not looking at him. “You are very caring but let me warn you: if you try just one more time to offer your advice or services to me, I shall telegraph Vasilii Eduardovich right on my arrival in Sevastopol so that you would be instantly dismissed from the Russian Society of Steamships and Trade. Did you hear me?” She came up with the first name and patronymic she could think of. It was an old funny trick that a friend of hers had once used to get rid of a police spy. Now she used it almost unconsciously, and this affected the primeval mind of the Greek dramatically. He hurriedly jumped up from the bench, raised his service cap a bit, and even in the dim light falling through the glass above the saloon she could see that he had quickly flushed crimson. aleksandr kuprin: seasickness 53

“For God’s sake . . . Please don’t misinterpret . . . Honest to God . . . Maybe you could think . . . ? I swear to God . . .” But at this moment the deck, having slipped down, all of a sudden swerved sideways, to the left, and Yelena would probably have fallen down, had the sailor not nimbly and delicately caught her by the waist. There was nothing deliberate in this embrace, and she said a little more softly: “I thank you but please leave me alone. I am not feeling well.” He tipped his cap peak, said a nautical “Aye!” and hastily walked away. Yelena climbed up the bench with her legs, leaned her elbows against the beech rails, and, upon burying her head between them, closed her eyes. The sailor appeared to her suddenly not as a dangerous type but as a miserable and laughable coward. She recalled some silly topical song about a steamer captain that her brother, student Arkadii—a “crazy student,” as they called him in the family—would sing. There was something in the song about a lady who sailed to Odessa on a steamer, about a sudden storm and seasickness: But the captain was very nice, Invited her to his cabin And tipped her that she lie in his bed And unbutton her corset . . . Chic, luster, immer elegan . . . She did recall the motive and a serious long face of Arkadii who would pronounce the idiotic words with a funny accent. At another time she would have laughed at remembering this but now she did not care; everything in the world was somehow, boring, monotonous and uninteresting to her. To test herself, she deliberately thought about Vasyutinsky and his circle, about her husband, about the pleasant work she did for him typing on a Remington, tried to imagine the long-awaited pleasure of seeing him again that seemed so bright and delightful over there, on shore, but no, everything turned out to be grey, remote, indifferent, not touching the heart. In her whole body and mind there remained only the slow, irritating, lax condition of a half-faint. Her skin from head to toes was drenched in sticky cold sweat. It was impossible for her wet, numb fingers to make a fist—they went limp and weak. It seemed as though she was just about to faint. She was waiting for it and afraid of it. But all of a sudden it felt dim and green in her eyes, annoying tickling began in her throat, the heart started fluttering feebly somewhere deep 54 aleksandr kuprin: seasickness down below, in the stomach. Yelena hardly managed to stand up and bend over the side.

IV

Then she felt a little better for a minute. “You’d better walk around, madam,” the same old man whose hat Vasyutinsky caught with his flowers, told her with sympathy. He was sitting on the next bench and saw Yelena feeling faint. “You should walk around in the air and try breathing rarely and deeply. This would help.” But she only shook her head and again, having placed her face on her elbow, closed her eyes. She hardly managed to fall asleep. She slept for probably about two hours and woke up from a sudden splash of foamy water that soared from under the side and doused her hair and neck. It was deep into the night, dark, cloudy, moonless and windy. The steamer was rocked from bow to stern and from one side to another. It was drizzling. The deck was empty; only in passageways near the walls of the deckhouse there were some sleeping people. On the left side in the infinitely remote blackness of the night, as if at the edge of the world, a white luminescent point of a lighthouse went on; having been lit up for a second, it would instantly go off and then go on again in a few seconds. A dim soft feeling suddenly touched Yelena’s soul. “That’s it,” she thought. “Somewhere in solitude, on a deserted cape, amid the night and storm, there is a person who is following these flashes of light carefully and maybe at this moment, as I am thinking of him, he also is dreaming of a heart that at this moment, far away, aboard an invisible ship, is thinking about him with gratitude.” And then she recalled the way last winter she and her husband were given a ride from the station Tuma by a conceited boy from Ryazan. It was night and snowstorm. In less than half-hour the boy lost his way, and the three of them circled around some wild snowy field cut up by trenches, going back to their own tracks that they had just made on this virgin land. Everywhere around them there was the same dim, dead, whitish darkness, in which the snow and sky had merged. When the horse would get into a trench, they had to scramble out of the sledge and walk waist-deep aleksandr kuprin: seasickness 55 in the snow. Yelena’s legs grew numb and she could scarcely feel them any more. A quiet, kindly despair possessed her. Her husband was silent, afraid to infect her with his anxiousness. The boy in the coach box did not pull the rope reins any longer and did not smack his lips geeing up the horse. It was moving forward submissively, with its head hung low. And suddenly the boy shouted in delight: “Landmark!” At first Yelena did not understand anything as it was her first time so deep in the backwoods. But when she saw a large pine-tree branch protruding from the snow and another branch dimly visible in the distance through the grey darkness and when she learnt that this was the way peasants mark the road to guide them in a snowstorm, she felt a warm and grateful tenderness. Someone whom she would never see in her entire life had gone along this road in daytime and caringly stuck these primeval beacons here and there. And what if he really had not thought about lost travelers—just as the man in a lighthouse may not be thinking about the gratitude of a woman sitting here aboard a steamer and watching the flashes of a remote white light . . . How joyful it is to converge two souls in one’s thoughts, of which one has left behind a careful, tender and unselfish track and the other accepts this gift with infinite love and admiration. And she thought with delight about great words, deep thoughts, and immortal books left behind for posterity: “Are they not these very land- marks along the mysterious path of humankind?” The old red-nosed boatswain she had spoken with before, in an oilcloth yellow overcoat with a hood over his head, with a little flashlight in his hand, hastily ran by toward the log and bent over it lighting up its dial plate. On his way back he recognized Yelena and stopped by her. “Not asleep, miss? Getting seasick? It’s always like this here. Tarkhan- kut. The most hideous place.” “Why is that?” “Well, there were so many accidents here. A cape on one side and on the other water is whirling like in a boiler. There is only this narrow space . . . So try to guess. Just where we are now, “Vladimir” sank when “Colombia” smashed into its side. So it just went down rapidly. Never found it. There is a pit yonder, about 400 fathoms.” A whistle came from the captain’s bridge. The boatswain rushed there but before he left, he added hastily: 56 aleksandr kuprin: seasickness

“Eh, I see you feel sick. It’s no good. Suck on a lemon wedge, you know. Or you will feel totally spent, you know.” Yelena got up and walked around the deck trying to hold on to the sides and door handles. This way she reached the third-class deck. Here everywhere in passageways on tarpaulin covering the manholes, on boxes and bags, leaning heavily against one another men, women and children were lying tangled in heaps. Sometimes the light from the bulbs fell on them, and their faces appeared deathly bluish and pale from unhealthy sleep and seasickness sufferings. She walked further. Toward the steamer’s bow in the free space separated in halves by a tethering post there were small pretty ponies with well-groomed hair and trimmed tails and manes. They were on their way to the Sevastopol circus. It was both soul-wrenching and touching to see the way these poor smart animals staunchly moved their body weight from front to back legs thus resisting the rocking, the way they screwed up their ears and squinted their perplexed eyes backward, toward the raging sea. She then went down through a steep steel stairway to the second class. There all the berths were occupied; even in the dining room where pale, moaning people were lying on the sofas along its walls. Seasickness has made everyone equal and made everyone forget all proprieties. Often a leg of a Jewish commissioner with a boot sliding off his foot and dirty underwear peeping out from under his trousers was almost touching the head of a beautiful well-dressed lady. But in the stuffy air inside it reeked so badly of people, human sleepy breath, and vomit that Yelena instantly went upstairs hardly managing to hold up a fit of nausea. Now the rocking became even stronger. Every time the ship’s bow, having climbed up a wave and stayed on top for a moment, suddenly fell down into the water with growing speed, Yelena would hear its sides sinking into the sea with a bang and the angry waves hissing around. And the green disgusting dimness began floating in front of her eyes again. The forehead felt cold, and a nauseating feeling of an impending faint possessed her body and all her essence. She bent over the side hoping to get relief, just like last night, but she only saw a dark, heavy space beneath and white waves on top of it, at one moment emerging, at another melting away. Her condition was so painful that she unwittingly thought that if she had a chance to die instantly, right on this spot, only for this feeling of aleksandr kuprin: seasickness 57 slow and hideous dying to stop, she would go for it with indifferent tired- ness. But she could not force this to stop as she had neither the will nor the desire to do so.

V

The same mate came up to her again. Now he stopped with a respectful look rather far from her, spreading his legs for stability, balancing his body against the rocking. “For God’s sake, don’t be angry, don’t interpret my words wrongly,” he said politely, but simply. “I felt so distressed and sorrowful when you recently gave this bad meaning to . . . However, maybe it was my own fault, I don’t debate it, but I really cannot see you suffer. For God’s sake, do not reject my favor. I am on the watch until morning. My cabin is totally vacant. Don’t be squeamish, I beg you. There are clean bedsheets there . . . everything you need. I will send in the maid . . . Let me help you.” She did not answer anything but the thought of a possibility to stretch out freely on a comfortable bed and lie down there alone for maybe just half an hour appeared to her extraordinarily pleasant, almost joyful. Now she did not any longer find the mate’s foppish looks, or his offer, objectionable. “Give me your hand, please, I will see you there,” the mate was saying with soft tenderness, “I will send you the maid; you will have your own key; you can take off your clothes if you feel like.” This Greek had a pleasant voice that sounded extremely sincere and respectful, exactly in the same tone not instilling any doubts that all experienced womanizers and voluptuaries who have had a multitude of easy, joyful short-lived relationships in their lives are able to use when they lie. In addition, Yelena’s will seemed to have totally faded, melted away after these awful fits of seasickness. “Ah, if you could only know how sick I have been!” She pronounced with some difficulty, almost without moving her cold, stiffened lips. “Let’s go, let’s go,” he said tenderly and somehow touchingly, in a broth- erly way; then he helped her get up from the bench, holding her up. She did not resist. The mate’s cabin was very small; it could hardly fit a bed and a small writing table between which a small stool was squeezed. But everything was foppishly clean, new and even coquettish. A plush tiger-skin-colored 58 aleksandr kuprin: seasickness blanket was half open; the fresh linen, without a single wrinkle, attracted the eye with its sweet whiteness. The electric bulb in a cut-glass cover was shining from under a green lampshade. By the mirror on the portable washstand there was a little bottle with lilies of the valley and daffodils. “Here we go . . . Be my guest,” the mate was saying while avoiding looking at Yelena. “Fell at home; here you will find everything you need for making your toilet. My home is your home. This is our sailor’s duty—to help the fair sex.” He burst out laughing with such an air that was expected to show that his last words had been just a lovely, friendly joke told casually and even somewhat coarsely by a simple and warm-hearted fellow. “So don’t be afraid please,” he said and left. Only once, for one brief moment, as he was turning around in the doorway, he glanced at Yelena, not even at her eyes but somewhere a bit higher, where her fine golden hair began with its luxuriant wave. Some instinctive fear, some remainder of reasonable cautiousness suddenly alarmed Yelena but at this moment the cabin’s floor rose up high and as though rolled sideways, and the same green dimness rushed in front of the woman’s eyes and the feeling of a faint began to hurt in her chest. Forgetting her momentary foreboding, she sat on the bed and seized its back with her hand. When she felt a bit better, she covered the bed with a blanket, unbuttoned the snaps of her blouse, then the unruly hooks of her low soft bod- ice that was squeezing her belly. Then she lay down on her back in delight sinking her head deep into the pillows and relaxing her tired legs. She instantly felt happy and easy. “I will rest a bit and then take my clothes off,” she thought with pleasure. She closed her eyes. Through her shut eyelids the pleasant pink light of the bulb was caressing her eyes. Now the rocking of the steamer was not as tormenting to her. She felt that within a few more minutes the rocking will lull her into a light, refreshing sleep. She just did not have to move. But someone knocked at the door. She recalled that she had not managed to lock it and felt embarrassed. But it could have been a maid. Having raised herself, she shouted: “Come in!” The mate came in, and suddenly a distinct feeling of horror shocked Yelena. The sailor’s head was bent down, he was not looking at Yelena aleksandr kuprin: seasickness 59 but his nostrils were moving, and she even heard him breathing heavily and shortly. “I beg your pardon, I left my magazine here,” he said faintly. He felt for something on the table standing with his back to Yelena and bending. A thought flashed through her mind—she should get up right now and leave the cabin, but he, as if anticipating her thoughts, suddenly leaped up to the door in one nimble beast-like movement and locked it up turning the key twice. “What are you doing!” Yelena screamed and helplessly, childishly clasped her hands. With a soft but extremely powerful motion he pushed her back to the bed and sat down next to her. With trembling hands he seized her blouse at the front and started opening it. His hands were hot, and it was as if some nervous, passionately aroused force was flowing from them. He was breathing heavily, even with a wheeze, and on his reddened face there were two swollen veins going upwards from the nose bridge. “My dear . . . ” he was saying curtly, and she could discern a poignant, blind, languishing passion in his voice. “My dear . . . I want to help you . . . instead of the maid . . . No! No! Don’t think badly of it . . . What breasts! What a body!” He put his hot inflamed head on her naked breast and was babbling as though he was drowsy: “You have to fully unbutton it, then you will feel better. For God’s sake, do not think that I am like . . . One minute . . . Just one minute . . . No one will ever know . . . You will be in bliss . . . No one will know . . . These are prejudices.” She pushed him away, set her arms against his chest, his head and said to him with disgust: “Let go, bastard . . . Animal . . . Scoundrel . . . No one has ever touched me like this.” In horror and wrath she started shrieking without any words, piercingly, but he clutched her mouth with his fat, wet and open lips. She floundered around, bit his lips and whenever she was able to push his face away for a second, she would scream and spit. And then again all of a sudden a painful, disgusting, deathly feeling of a faint drained her of all energy. Her arms and legs became languid, just like her entire body. “Goodness, what have you done to me!” she said quietly. “You did something worse than a murder. Oh my God! Oh my God!” At this moment someone knocked at the door. The sailor, still breathing heavily, unlocked it, and that same sea cadet, joyful like a nimble little 60 aleksandr kuprin: seasickness monkey whom Yelena had seen yesterday near the gangway, entered the cabin. “Goodness! Goodness! My goodness!” the woman said having covered her face with her palms.

VI

Morning came. While they were unloading people and bags in Yevpato- riya, Yelena woke up on the upper deck from light dampness of the morning fog. The sea was calm and tender. The sun was showing pink through the fog. A remote shoreline was showing yellow up front. Only now when gradually her sleep-affected consciousness returned to her, she deeply embraced in her mind all the horror and disgrace of last night. She recalled the mate, then the cadet, then the mate again. The crudeness, the unconcealed disgust of a low, satiated man, with which this handsome Greek showed her the door of his cabin. And this memory was the hardest one of all. The steamer was delayed for three hours in Sevastopol while long obedient trunks of the capstans were unloading and loading packages, barrels, bunches of steel beams, some marble plates and sacks. The fog cleared. The lovely round harbor edged by yellow shores was lying immobile. Nim- ble white and black motorboats were furrowing its surface. White navy boats with St. Andrew’s cross on the stern dashed by swiftly. Sailors with naked necks synchronically pulled their bodies far back throwing oars out of the water. Yelena went to the shore and not quite sure for what reason rode around the town in an electric streetcar. The whole mountainous, lifeless, white city seemed empty, desolate, and one could think that no one lived there apart from sea officers, sailors and soldiers as though it had been conquered. She sat in the town park for a little while, staring indifferently at its lawns, palm trees and cut down bushes, listening indifferently to music being played in the rotunda. Then she returned to the steamer. At one o’clock the steamer pushed off. Only then, after the general breakfast, Yelena slowly, as if on the sly, went down to the saloon. Some humiliating feeling, against her will, was making her avoid company and stay alone. And to come out to the deck after breakfast she had to make a huge effort against herself. All the way to Yalta she sat near the side leaning her face against the rails. aleksandr kuprin: seasickness 61

The low sandy shore began gradually to grow higher, and rare dark bushes of greenery appeared on it. Some passenger sitting next to Yel- ena was intentionally loudly—for all to hear—reading from a guidebook about the places seen up front, and she listlessly, suppressed by the night- marish horror of last night’s events, feeling as if she had been dragged through the stinking mud, was watching the beautiful places of the pen- insula unfold in front of her. Cape Fiolent sailed by, red, steep, with sharp boulders, ready to fall into the sea at any moment. Long time before there was a temple of a blood-thirsty goddess here: humans were sacrificed to her and the bodies of the prisoners were thrown down from the precipice. Balaklava went by, with its scarcely noticeable silhouettes of the destroyed Genoa tower on a mountain; moss-covered Cape Aya; curly Laspi; Foros looking like a Byzantium church on top of a high hill, with the Baidar Gate crowning the mountain. And then amid the thick greenery of gardens and parks between the zigzags of a white road white summer cottages, rich villas, mountain Tatar little village houses with flat roofs began moving by slowly. The sea was spreading itself smoothly around the steamer; dolphins were playing in the water. It strongly, freshly and joyfully smelled like sea air. But nothing pleased Yelena’s eye. She had a feeling as though not a human being but some higher, omnipotent, vicious and scornful creature had all of sudden taken hold of her body and defiled it, sullied her thoughts, broke her pride and forever deprived her of a quiet, credulous joy of life. She did not know what to do now and was thinking about it as listlessly and indifferently as she was watching the shore, the sky, and the sea. Now the public was mostly crowded by the left side. Once Yelena briefly saw the mate in the crowd. He quickly slipped his eyes away from her, apprehensively turned around and disappeared behind the deckhouse. But not only in his swift glance but even in the way his back shuddered under his naval jacket she read his deep, squeamish aversion to her. And she instantly felt that she was now forever and ever, to the end of her life, connected to him and absolutely equal to him. They passed Alupka with its wide greenish, Mauritian-style palace and luxurious park; green and curly Miskhor, white, as though cut out from sugar, Diulber, and the “Swallow’s Nest,” a hideous red house with a tower stuck to the very edge of a vertical rock falling into the sea. They were approaching Yalta. Now the whole deck was covered with luggage. There was no room to move. In the herd instinct that always pos- sesses people aboard steamers, on railways and stations before boarding 62 aleksandr kuprin: seasickness and getting off, the passengers became fussy and unfriendly to each other. Yelena was often pushed; her feet and dress were stepped on. She would not turn around. Now she was beginning to get fearful before her husband. She could not imagine how their meeting would take place, what she would be telling him. Is she going to have the resolve to tell him everything? What will he do? Will he forgive? Get angry? Feel sorry for her or push her off as an ordinary cheat and libertine? Every time when she imagined the moment when she would finally have the courage to open her poor, defamed soul to him, she would grow pale and, closing her eyes, inhaled deeply. Dense Oreanda park, noble ruins of the Marble Palace, the red Liva- dia Palace, smooth rows of vineyards in the mountains, and here it was, finally, inserted into the horseshoe of mountains, the joyful, multicolored amphitheater of Yalta, golden domes of the cathedral, thin and slender dark cypresses resembling narrow black spindles, stone-paved quay, and on it—looking almost like toys—there were people, horses and carriages. Slowly and carefully spinning around, the steamer sideways moored to the shore. Instantly a mass of people in a crude imitation of a herd of sheep rushed from the steamer over the gangway to the shore, crushing, pushing and squeezing one another. Yelena felt deep repugnance to all these red male backs of the head, to the confused, angry, and hastily powdered up female faces, sweaty hands, menacingly bent elbows. It seemed to her that each of these needlessly brutalized people contained the same beast that had crushed her last night. Only when the passengers flooded back and the deck became free, she went up to the side and instantly saw her husband. And suddenly everything about him: his dark blue silk Russian shirt belted with a wide sash, his short trousers worn over high boots, white wide-brimmed felt hat worn at the time by all Social Democrats, his short height, golden spectacles, his screwed eyes, the grimace around his mouth tense from the sun rays— this all appeared to her infinitely familiar and at the same time for some reason hostile and unpleasant. Regret flickered through her mind that she had not wired him from Sevastopol that she was leaving forever: it would have been great just to write simply this, not explaining any reasons. But he had already seen her from distance and was waving his hat and lifting his walking cane above his head. aleksandr kuprin: seasickness 63

VII

Late at night she got up from her bed that was separated from his with a nightstand and, leaving the lights off, sat down at his feet and touched him slightly. He instantly rose up and whispered frightfully: “What happened, Yelochka? What’s wrong?” He was embarrassed and seriously concerned with her today’s tense silence and, although she used headache following the seasickness as an excuse, he had felt some kind of a grief or mystery behind her words. All day he chose not to bother her with questions thinking that as time would go by everything would be clarified. But even now when he had not yet moved from sleep to banal wisdom of wakefulness, he unmistakably, somewhere in the dark depths of his soul, felt that something rough and frightening, something that never happens twice in one’s life would take place right now. Both windows were wide open. A tickling, sugary smell of invisible wis- terias was in the air. A string orchestra was playing in the town park, and its sounds seemed beautiful and sad. “Sergei, hear me out,” Yelena said. “No, do not light up the candle,” she added hastily having heard him messing with a matchbox. “It will be better like this, with no lights on . . . I am going to tell you something that will be unusual and unbearably difficult for you but I cannot help it, I must test you. Forgive me!” She could hardly see him in the dark in his white shirt. He groped for a glass and carafe, and she heard glass tinkle against glass. She heard him drinking water in large loud gulps. “Speak, Yelochka,” he whispered. “Listen, tell me what you would do and say if I came up to you and said: ‘My darling Sergei, here I am, your wife who has never loved anyone besides you, and will never love anyone besides you, but today I was unfaithful to you. Please understand that I was unfaithful totally, to the last limit that is only possible between man and woman.’ No, do not hurry to answer me. I was unfaithful but not on the sly, not hiding, but unwillingly, under the power of circumstances . . . Come on, just fancy this . . . a whim of a hysterical character, extreme and unbridled lust; come on, finally maybe some violence of a drunken man . . . some infantry officer . . . Darling Sergei, do not make any excuses and digressions, do not stop me and answer me straightforwardly. And remember that having done this, I did not even for one second cease loving you more than anything that is dear to me.” 64 aleksandr kuprin: seasickness

He was silent for a while, messed about on his bed a bit, found her hand and wanted to shake it but she pulled it away. “Yelochka, you have scared me, I don’t know what to tell you; I have no idea, really. Mind you, if you fell in love with another man, you would tell me, you wouldn’t lie to me, you would come up to me and say: ‘Sergei, we are both free and honest people, I have stopped loving you, I love someone else, forgive me—and let’s part ways!’ And I would kiss your hand at parting and would say: ‘Thank you for everything you have given me; I bless your name, allow me to keep your friendship.” “No, no, not that . . . . Not that at all. I didn’t fall in love but just rudely cheated on you. Cheated because could not help doing it, because it was not my fault.” “But did you like him? Did you experience the delights of love?” “Ah, no, no! Sergei, just disgust all the time, deep, unbelievable disgust. Tell me for instance, what if I was raped?” He carefully drew her to himself. Now she did not resist him. He said: “My darling Yelochka, why think about it? This is the same if you had asked me whether I would fall out of love with you if smallpox scars maimed your face, or a railway train would cut off your leg. This is the same. If some scoundrel raped you—goodness, nothing is impossible in our today’s reality!—I would hug you, put your head on my chest, just as I am doing it now, and would say to you: ‘My lovely offended poor child, here I am, pitying you as a husband, a brother, the only friend and am washing disgrace off your heart with my kiss.” They kept silent for a long while and then Sergei started talking: “Tell me everything!” And she began thus: “Just suppose . . . But mind you, Sergei, this is only a supposition . . . If I had an unstoppable attack of seasickness aboard a steamer at night . . . ” And she retold in every small detail, not leaving anything out, the story of what happened to her last night. She told him about the shocking and now infinitely agonizing feeling that possessed her in the presence of the young sea cadet. But she would always insert these words in her story: “Listen, this is just a supposition. Don’t think this really happened, this is just a supposition. I make up the worst fiction what my imagination is capable of.” And when she fell silent, he said quietly and almost triumphantly: “So this has really happened? It has? But, I cannot either condemn or forgive you. You are at fault for this as much as for a bad, absurd dream you could have. Give me your hand!” Having kissed her hand, he asked her almost unintelligibly: aleksandr kuprin: seasickness 65

“So did this really happen, Yelochka?” “Yes, my darling. I am so unhappy, so deeply unhappy. Thank you for consoling me, for not breaking my heart. For this one minute, I don’t know how I will be able to thank you in my life!” And with bitter and joyful tears she pressed herself against his body sobbing and shuddering with her naked shoulders and wetting his shirt. He carefully, slowly, tenderly caressed her hair with his hand. “Lie down, my dear, get some sleep, some rest. Tomorrow you will wake up cheerful and everything will look like a long-gone dream.” She lay down. A quarter of an hour passed by. The wisteria smelled relaxing and languishing; the orchestra sounded fabulously beautiful from afar, but the husband and wife could not fall asleep lying in bed afraid to disturb each other, with their eyes closed, trying not to roll over, not to sigh, while they both understood that the other one was not asleep. All of a sudden he jumped up on the bed and uttered in fright: “Yelochka! What if there will be a baby? Suppose there will be a baby!” She paused and then asked faintly: “Would you hate it?” “No, I would not hate it. All children are beautiful; I told you a hundred times about it, and I believe—not just with words, but with all my soul— that there is no difference in loving your own and someone else’s child. I have always said that extreme motherly feeling is almost criminal, that a woman who would like to rescue her baby from a simple fever would be ready to destroy hundreds of other, someone else’s children—such a woman is hideous, although she might be a wonderful or, as they say, “saint,” mother. The child you would bear as a result of this would be my child, but Yelochka . . . This person must have had thousands of similar adventures in his life. He is undoubtedly acquainted with all the disrepu- table diseases . . . Who knows . . . Maybe he has hereditary alcoholism in his blood . . . syphilis . . . This is where all the horror is, Yelochka.” She replied wearily: “All right, I will do anything you will want me to.” And a long pause ensued again that lasted horribly long. He began talking timidly: “I don’t want to lie, I must confess to you that only one circumstance is tormenting me: that you got to know the joy, physical joy of love not with me but with some rascal. Ah! Why did it happen? Had I taken you not as a maiden, it would not matter to me but this is . . . this . . . my darling,” his 66 aleksandr kuprin: seasickness voice grew pleading and shaky, “maybe this has never happened, hasn’t it? You just wanted to test me, right?” She nervously laughed out loud. “Do you really think that I could cheat on you? Of course, I just tested you. That’s enough. You have passed the exam and now can sleep quietly and let me sleep.” “So this is true? True? My darling, adorable, lovely Yelochka. Oh, I am so glad. Ha-ha, I was such a fool to almost believe you. Nothing happened, Yelochka?” “Nothing,” she replied rather dryly. He moved around a little bit and fell asleep. But in the morning he was woken up by some rustling. The room was light. Yelena, pale after a sleepless night, thinner, with dark orbits around her eyes, with dry, cracked lips, almost fully dressed, was hastily finishing her toilet. “Where are you going, darling?” he asked anxiously. “I will be right back,” she replied, “I have a strong headache. I will go out for a walk and then go to bed after breakfast.” He recalled what happened last night and said, extending his arms toward her: “You frightened me, my lovely unkind little wifey. If you only knew what you have done to my heart! You know, this horror would have stayed with us for the rest of our lives. Neither you nor I would have been able to forget it. Is that the truth? All this—the mate, the cadet, seasickness—this is all fiction, isn’t it?” She responded to this calmly, being surprised at herself that she, so proud of her customary truthfulness, could lie so naturally and easily. “Of course, it is pure fiction. One lady was just telling such a story in the cabin that really had happened some day on a steamer. Her story excited me, and I so vividly imagined myself in the situation of this woman, and I was possessed by horror when I realized that you would hate me if I had been in her place, so I got totally confused . . . But, thank God, this is all in the past now.” “Of course, in the past,” he confirmed, happy and absolutely reassured. “My goodness! Yes, after all, if it had in fact happened, would you have fallen in my eyes and become worse? What nonsense!” She left. He fell asleep again and slept until ten in the morning. At eleven he began worrying about her absence, and at noon a boy from aleksandr kuprin: seasickness 67 some hotel, in a hat trimmed with lace and with a multitude of golden buttons on his jacket, brought him a brief letter from Yelena: “I took the 9 a.m. steamer back to Odessa. I don’t want to conceal from you that I am going to Vasyutinsky, and you certainly understand what I will be doing for the rest of my life. You are the only person I was in love with and the last one because men’s love no longer exists for me. You are the most chaste and honest of all the people I have ever met. But you also turned out to be a petty mistrustful acquisitive person in love matters, suspicious and humiliatingly jealous. We two will undoubtedly see each other as we are both involved in the cause that will become all the meaning of my life. I ask you for the sake of our former love: no questions, reproaches or attempts at closer relations. You know yourself that I don’t change my decisions. The steamer story is, of course, pure fiction. Yelena.”

Fyodor SOLOGUB The Tsarina of Kisses

Fig. 4 Fyodor Sologub

Usually classified as a symbolist and decadent poet and novelist, Sologub (1863–1927) explored Russian culture’s newly-born fascination with corporeality, carnality and eroticism in almost all of his work. This author is best remembered today for his poetry and his magnum opus, the novel The Petty Demon (1902). Sologub’s complex eroticism goes well beyond decadent “erotomania” and “soft pornography” that he was sometimes accused of. His takes on human sexualities and “Russian Eros” have been developed by such younger contemporaries as Bunin, G. Ivanov, Kuprin and, finally, Nabokov. The Tsarina of Kisses (1921) was written in its present version after the October Revolution (an early version was published in 1907). Sadistic and masochistic erotic imagery is strewn throughout Sologub’s poetry and prose but this novella seems to be curiously devoid of it. Instead, it seems to echo a number of texts, including The Book of Thousand and One Nights, Push- kin’s tales and Gogol’s Ukrainian stories.1

1 Russian original: Sologub, Fyodor. “Царица поцелуев”. Эрос. Россия. Серебряный век. Сост. А. Щуплов. Москва: Серебряный бор, 1992. 278–289. 70 fyodor sologub: the tsarina of kisses

How foolish and thoughtless female cunning desires can be and to what frightful and seductive consequences they can lead, this story will serve to illustrate—the story will be didactic and perfectly trustworthy. The story will be about one fair lady who wished to become a tsarina of kisses and what happened then. In one glorious and ancient town there lived a wealthy and old merchant named Balthazar. He had married a beautiful young maiden for the devil, powerful over the young and the old alike, had presented her charms to him in such an appealing light that the old man could not resist their spell. Having gotten married, Balthazar was quite remorseful: his advanced age would not allow him to fully enjoy the delights of conjugal nights, while jealousy soon became to torment him. And not with grounds: the young mistress Mafalda—that was his wife’s name—was bored with her spouse’s scant caresses and watched the young and handsome with lust. Balthazar had to leave the house on business matters for entire days, and only on holidays he could be with Mafalda continually. This was why Bal- thazar had brought in Barbara, a faithful old woman, who was tasked to keep a watchful eye on his wife. Young and passionate Mafalda’s life thus became boring: not only was she unable to kiss any handsome young man, she was even severely reproached and mercilessly punished by her husband for even a furtive sweet glance at anyone: the shrewish, vicious Barbara reported everything to him. Once on a sultry summer day when it was so hot that even the sun had heavily dozed off in the sky and was not afterwards sure where it was sup- posed to go, to the left or to the right, old Barbara fell asleep. Young Mafalda, upon taking off extra clothes and leaving only those garments on that would be most necessary even in paradise, sat down on the threshold of her room and was sadly watching the shady garden surrounded by walls. There was naturally no stranger in that garden, and there could not be as the only gate in the fence had been nailed tightly a long time before and one could enter the garden only via the house, which was locked down by tightly shut street doors. No one could be seen by the sad eyes of the captive young mistress. Only sharp-edged shadows were motionlessly lying in the sand of clean walkways, and the trees with burnt out leaves were languishing in the immobile silence of their charmed life, and the flowers were fragrant with their spicy and irritating aroma. And all of a sudden someone called to Mafalda, quietly but distinctly: “Mafalda, what do you really want?” fyodor sologub: the tsarina of kisses 71

She should have kept silent and left for her rooms, crossing herself clean from the dirty spell—but no, Mafalda stayed. Mafalda startled. Mafalda looked around in curiosity. Mafalda slyly smirked and asked in whisper: “Who is there?” Not far from her, in the pink bushes that smelled so languid and tender someone chuckled quietly but so clearly and sweetly that Mafalda’s heart stopped beating in incomprehensible joy. Here we go, having just whispered a bit with the sly tempter, she found herself under the spell of his foul sorcery. And the mysterious guest spoke again, and there came the fragrance of his seductive words: “Miss Mafalda, what is my name to you? And I cannot show myself to you either. You should tell me now what you wish and long for and I will do everything for you, lovely lady.” “Why do not you want to show yourself to me?” the curious Mafalda asked. “Miss, you are dressed so lightly,” the mysterious visitor answered Mafalda, “your braids are long and thick, but even they fail to entirely conceal your admirable legs, and so, miss, if I come out right now, you, Miss, will be ashamed.” “Never mind, no one will see us, Barbara’s asleep,” Mafalda said. But sensitive is the slumber of old women guarding young beauties. Barbara heard her name spoken and woke up. She appeared at the threshold next to her mistress, suspiciously looked around and asked: “Miss Mafalda, who did you just talk to? Who was here with you in the garden?” “Who could I talk to!” Mafalda replied indignantly. “There was no one here, and who could get into this garden? Maybe only the devil but why would I talk to him? Not much delight!” But the old woman shook her head incredulously and mumbled: “Cunning are young wives of old husbands. I smell someone who has been here: it doesn’t smell like the devil but, rather, like a young suitor in a velvet beret and red cloak. Rolling up his moustache with one hand and leaning on the handle of his sword with another, he was standing right there, behind the pink bush, and was telling you the words for which your husband will surely teach you a lesson!” Having been flogged cruelly by her husband upon vicious Barbara’s report, Mafalda wept for a long time and could not fall asleep. Next to her on the nuptial bed Balthazar the venerable merchant who had just 72 fyodor sologub: the tsarina of kisses enjoyed, within the limits of his old age prowess, the forced caresses of his punished wife was snoring quietly. And all of a sudden Mafalda again heard above her the same sweet tempting voice: “Mafalda, quick, tell me what you want. Quick, while your husband is still asleep and no one knows that I am here.” And now Mafalda did not procrastinate for a second and, raising herself on the pillows, turning her lustful eyes on to the nocturnal darkness, said: “I want to be the Tsarina of Kisses.” The unknown visitor laughed, and then silence fell again. But she felt a change in herself now. She did not know yet what exactly it was but she was already joyful. She fell asleep sweetly and soundly and had cheerful and passionate dreams. Many beautiful youths would come up to her and cover her with such fiery kisses that seemed to never have existed either in this world or in heavens. And Mafalda dreamed that her energy was interminable now and that she could kiss all the youths of their town and many other towns and endow them with her passionate caresses to exhaustion, to death. Morning came, and a great craving for kisses began to burn in Mafalda’s body. Hardly had her husband left the house to attend to his trade business, Mafalda took off all her clothes and made up her mind to go outside. Barbara screamed furiously appealing to the servants and wanted to force her mistress to stay in the house. But Mafalda dealt a quick blow to her vicious guard and knocked her down to the floor. She then elbowed and fisted her way through the male and female servants and ran out to the street naked, shrieking loudly: “Beautiful youths, here I am, on my way to the intersection of your streets, naked and beautiful, craving for embraces and fiery caresses, I am none other than the great Tsarina of Kisses. You all, brave and young, come to me, enjoy my beauty and my wild audacity; drink the elixir of love in my arms—love which is joyful to the point of death, more powerful than death itself. Come to me, to me, to the Tsarina of Kisses.” Having heard Mafalda’s piercingly loud call, the youths of that town hastily gathered running out of everywhere. Youthful Mafalda’s beauty—and even more than this beauty her devil- ish charm exuding from her fearlessly and pluckily naked body bared in front of everyone—sparkled desire in the gathering youths. And to the first one of them did youthful Mafalda open her passionate embrace and ravished them with the bliss of her voluptuous kisses and fyodor sologub: the tsarina of kisses 73 caresses. And she gave to his desires her beautiful body stretched out right there, in the street, on a hurriedly laid cloak of her lover. And before the gaze of the lusting crowd of youths emitting shrieks of passion and jealousy, they all quickly enjoyed her steamy caresses. Hardly had the embraces of the first lover opened, hardly had he bent over beautiful Mafalda’s legs in passionate languor willing to restore the ardor of his love by a short rest, he was dragged away from Mafalda. And the second youth possessed her body and steamy caresses. A dense throng of lustful youths was crowding around the two caressing on the hard stones of the pavement. “It’s too hard for them,” someone reasonable and kind said, “let’s lay our cloaks so that we also would have a fluffy bed when it is our turn to get laid with the Tsarina of Kisses.” And instantly a mountain of cloaks was erected in the street. One after another the youths were throwing themselves into Mafalda’s bottomless embraces. And then stepped aside in exhaustion, while beautiful Mafalda was lying on the soft bed of cloaks of all colors, from bright red to the blackest of them all, and embraced, and kissed, and moaned from limitless passion, from the unquenchable craving for kisses. And in a shrill voice, heard from afar, she was calling thus: “Youths of this town and other towns and villages, remote and nearby, come all into my embraces, enjoy my love because I am the Tsarina of Kisses, and my caresses are inexhaustible, and my love is immeasurable and indefatigable even to the point of death.” Swift-winged rumor flew around the town, about a reckless Mafalda who is lying naked out there at a street intersection and gives her excellent body to youths’ caresses. And there gathered at the intersection husbands and wives, elders and venerable ladies and children, and they surrounded the dense crowd of the reckless. And they began screaming and reproaching the shameless ones ordering them to break up and threatening with all the might of parental power, and with God’s wrath, and strict punishment from the town authorities. But only with shrieks of steaming passion would the youths respond to them. And Balthazar also came and tried to burst through to his wife, furiously shrieking, dealing blows and biting. But the youths did not let him through to Mafalda. The old man lost his strength and, standing in a distance, was tearing his clothes and gray hair. There came town elders and ordered the shameless mob to break up. But the youth would not obey and continued to throng around the beautiful naked Mafalda. And the elders’ persuasions did not affect them. 74 fyodor sologub: the tsarina of kisses

And this huge disgrace was going on and on; meanwhile, evening was approaching. Then they called for the guard. The soldiers attacked the youths, beat many of them up, others were dispersed. But then they notice the enticing, although by then jaded by the caresses of many, body of Mafalda and heard her reed pipe-like, ringing scream: “I am the Tsarina of Kisses. Come to me, you all, who crave for voluptuous caresses of love.” The warriors forgot about their duty. And in vain did the elders exclaim: “Take the reckless Mafalda and bring her to the house of her spouse, the venerable Balthazar.” The warriors, just like the youths before them, surrounded Mafalda and craved for her embraces. But because they were coarse people and could not observe the line, as the polite and modest youths of that town, well-bred by their noble-minded parents, had done, so they burst into fighting, and while one of them would embrace Mafalda, the others used their arms to decide by sword who would enjoy Mafalda’s incomparable delights. And many were wounded and killed. The elders had no idea what to do. They were conferring in the street right by the spot where the reckless Mafalda was shrieking in the embraces of the soldiers and covered them with tireless caresses. An accident that in any other circumstances had to have been called horrifying came to the rescue of the town elders suffering from powerless wrath and shame. One of the soldiers, a very young and weak one compared to the others, but not a bit less ardent, could not wait for the oppor- tunity to get closer to Mafalda’s seductive body. He was walking around the area where the sweet kisses were heard, where inexhaustible love was gifting its incomparable delights to his comrades, but they pushed him aside and crudely laughed at him. He lay down on the stones of the pavement, cold and hard as it was already deep into the evening and the night darkness descended upon the town. He then covered his head with his cloak and moaned in resentment, shame and powerless desire. Burnt by anger, he surreptitiously bared his dagger and crawled quietly, as a snake sneaking through grass, between the legs of the crowding soldiers. And he approached Mafalda. He touched up her chilled legs and plunged his quick dagger into her quivering side. A loud scream was heard, and then a broken howl. In the arms of a caressing soldier Mafalda was dying and moaning quieter and quieter. Then she began to wheeze. And then died. Spattered by her blood, the soldier stood up. fyodor sologub: the tsarina of kisses 75

“Someone slaughtered the Tsarina of Kisses!” he screamed fiercely. “Someone vicious did not let us enjoy the caresses which have not yet been known to anyone on earth, as it was the first time that the Tsarina of Kisses descended upon us!” The soldiers felt embarrassed. And just stood around the body. Then the elders came closer, already passionless due to the length of years they had lived, picked up Mafalda’s body, and took it over to old Balthazar’s house. That very night the young soldier who had murdered Mafalda entered her house. How it came to be that he was not noticed and stopped, I do not know. He approached Mafalda’s body lying on the bed—the coffin had not been made yet—and lay down next to her under the bedspread. And, dead, Mafalda opened her cold arms for him and embraced him tightly, and, until morning came, responded to his kisses with her own, cold and comforting as consoling death itself, and answered his caresses with her own, dark and deep as death, death that perennially undoes the ties of love. When the sun rose and pierced with its burning beams the twilight of quiet silence, at this frightful and languid dawn hour, embraced by the naked and dead Mafalda the Tsarina of Kisses, under her red bedspread, the young warrior died. Opening her embrace, for the last time did Mafalda smile at him. I know that there will be unreasonable women and maidens who will call beautiful Mafalda the Tsarina of Kisses’ destiny sweet and glorious, and there will also be youths so insane as to envy the death of the last and most caressed lover of hers. But you, venerable virtuous ladies who take off just your gloves for a kiss, you who love the delights of family hearth and decorum of your home so much, fear, do fear light-minded desire and shun the cunning tempter!

Part two

Inheriting Silver Age in Émigré Writing

Vladislav Khodasevich About Pornography

Fig. 5 Vladislav Khodasevich

Khodasevich (1886–1939) is remembered—and revered—in Russia today as one of the most accomplished Silver Age poets but, perhaps, much less so as a critic and essayist. His 1932 essay on literary pornography translated here is arguably one of the most interesting attempts to define this problem in Russian-language literary criticism. The essay was known to Nabokov and may have paved the way to his conception of Lolita. Khodasevich’s argument is that, first, there are no pornographic plots or works of literature as such, he argues; there exist only pornographic aims and intentions of an author who employs certain stylistic “devices” to stimu- late his/her reader sexually. Therefore, it is crucial to analyze the style of a literary work, not its plot. Second, Khodasevich warns critics that it is dangerous to call a literary work or even parts of this work “pornographic” (unless it is aimed at “arousing the instinct”), regardless of the number and explicitness of erotic scenes therein. Conversely, he also posits the argument that Nabokov must have picked up from him: a writer’s bad taste combined with erotic scenes may produce what he calls the “pornographic effect.” The key ironic metaphor of Khodasevich’s essay is that of American collectors who buy an antique statue of a naked woman/goddess and then clothe it in panties. Khodasevich implies that this is precisely how one can unwittingly become a “pornographer” due to the lack of artistic taste and confusing “aim” with “device.” Whenever one tries to produce judgment on 80 part two a phenomenon such as “pornography” in Russian culture, he or she might as well think of avoiding dressing up the figurative statue of Venus in some fancy but superfluous verbal “lingerie.” 1

I have recently received several reproaches, written and oral, for not emphasizing in a recent review of a young writer’s novel its pornographic character, which allegedly characterizes it. “Where vileness is obvious, you could only see an artistic blunder,” one of my interlocutors told me. I believe, however, that in this case I did not deserve to be reproached for shortsightedness, just like the young author—for pornography. True, there are several scenes in the novel that are erotic in substance. In most cases they are crude and even repulsive in the way they are presented. Abuse of this crudeness has been noted by me in my review as an artistic blunder. But I did not accuse the author of pornography for a simple reason: he is not guilty of this sin. The anti-artistic nature of some of his devices is accidentally linked to several erotic moments but is not condi- tioned by these and therefore has nothing in common with anti-artistry typical of pornography. It even seems to me that this whole accusation is built upon a blurred idea of what pornography is, as this term remains ill-defined. We still have a very shaky definition of what pornography actually is. I would like to begin bringing more clarity to its definition and would like to outline main traits that characterize this phenomenon, distinguishing it from a large amount of cases where verbal or visual art is to this or that degree built around an erotic plot. The fact that pornography arises from an erotic plot is self-evident and does not require either proof or clarification. But not every treatment of an erotic plot is pornography—this is equally self-evident. It is prompted by direct feeling and comprises the second part of the same axiom. But due to incorrect application of these two indisputable postulates usually the main mistake arises: signs of pornography are sought not where and not in the way they should be sought. Normally they try to determine at what ‘factual’ moment designing an erotic plot becomes pornography. How- ever, this moment is indeterminable. An 1820 critic discussing [Pushkin’s

1 The essay is translated here in a slightly abridged form. Russian original: Khodasevich, Vladislav. “О порнографии.” Эрос. Россия. Серебряный век. Сост. А. Щуплов. Москва: Серебряный бор, 1992. 294–300. vladislav khodasevich: about pornography 81 long poem] Ruslan and Lyudmila found himself unable to avoid “blushing and lowering one’s eyes” at these lines: And on a girl at seventeen What hat is not going to look pretty? They are never too lazy to dress up! Lyudmila wriggled her hat And moved it over her brows sideways, And then put it on back to front. For us it is completely unclear what in these lines could seem reprehen- sible to our literary great-grandfather. His bashfulness appears absurd to us. We, consequently, believe that the limits of bashfulness should be nar- rowed, just as the limits of permitted shamelessness—broadened. But to what degree, though? Let’s begin with the fact that a kiss is an erotic act in itself. But to protest against a kiss would be obviously absurd. How- ever, the kiss could be qualified by assigning it to certain categories. How should we act in one or the other case? More than that, behind the kiss in literature one finds a huge and most complex gradation of acts—just as in real life. Who is going to be able to determine at what rung of this ladder the characters of a literary work should stop? Once it becomes impossible to determine this, one would have to admit inevitably that the presence of a pornographic element cannot be discovered through a plot analysis. In other words, by its mere presence, no erotic fact, be it presented verbally or plastically, endows the work with pornographic character. This is confirmed in the everyday practice of making statements. It is not hypocrisy or preconception that prevent us from discerning the pornography, for instance, in some biblical episodes, which in their plots are often much bolder than some episodes from the writings of such an indisputable pornographer as the Marquis de Sade. By the same token, it is not historical or esthetic hypocrisy that make us unerringly distinguish the moral level of ancient sculpture from the moral level of photography sold covertly, even though it sometimes does not contain anything but the same type of nude figure. The main sign of pornography can be, it seems to me, discovered only by the following method—via studying characteristic devices that it uses to achieve its purpose. Once this purpose is specific, one can suggest a priori that the devices to a certain degree will also be specific. To direct the reader’s imagination in such a way so that to evoke a straightforward, pure erotic feeling—this is the main purpose of pornography, verbal or graphic. Subordinate to the ineluctable law of economy, it must concentrate its efforts on this main purpose and therefore must 82 part two strive to divert the reader from all extraneous thoughts and impressions as much as possible. The devices it has to employ are predetermined by this goal. In art, the plot generally plays a secondary role, as a backbone for the piece, but it acquires an independent and primary role in pornography. In this sense, pornography is close to reportage and to the adventure novel. Furthermore, art, using the images from reality, actually moves us away from such attempts. The purpose of pornography is just the opposite: to bring inanimate, or verbal, representation closer to reality. Art presents the illusory character of reality to us, while pornography, as any pseudo- art, on the contrary, strives to bring all the illusory closer to reality. It is still more necessary for, as it aspires not to reflect abstract emotions for us, it rather causes a largely physiological reaction [. . .]. Just like any window dressing, any bare description, pornography seems to posit that one of the main means of graphicness is maximal proximity to reality in plasticity and accumulation of facts and documents in literature. As an anti-artistic phenomenon, succumbing to its nature, it naturally seeks for exactly what true art avoids. It is not accidental that pornographic photography is forcing out not only pornographic drawing from the market, the latter being less affordable price-wise, but also even the mechanical reproductions of drawings that are much cheaper than photography. This happens because one and the same plot depicted in a drawing and in a photograph will always in the latter mode be more appealing to the consumer in its documentary character, its natural anti- artistic character, since art will not elicit the necessary degree of illusion. It is quite remarkable that any of today’s advertisements of pornographic photos always publicize their documentary character in the first place, their aspiration for getting closer to reality, but not to art [. . .]. Some of the most expensive and “luxurious” series of photographs always are given additional pink, “body color” tints. . . . The photographs are sold legally because, from the legal perspective, they are untouchable: they do not contain erotic scenes but are just images of individual nude bodies; plot-wise they are not different from works of art that cannot be suspected of immorality. At the same time, it is clear to everyone that we deal here with pure pornography. This is an eloquent argument in favor of the fact that pornography is not created by plot but by device, not by content but by form, not by “what” is represented but by “how” it is. For the same reason, we observe the reverse phenomenon: if plots are the same, and if we possess a certain level of artistic taste, we can distinguish pornography from art; but to an artistically untrained eye that vladislav khodasevich: about pornography 83 is unable to single out artistic devices, the sameness of device used in [the representations] is naively equated with a sameness of purpose: such are the American art collectors who have clothed an antique sculpture in panties. It is not a matter of hypocrisy: the problem is that such a collec- tor does not in fact know what he collects. To him, Vénus médicéenne is expensive but not effective pornography whereas an obscene photograph is cheap and effective art. For similar reasons, he reads and treats adventure novels equally with Madame Bovary and often prefers [American author Lew] Wallace to Flaubert. There is no pornographic work without a pornographic purpose. The pornographic purpose is objectively distinguishable in it by exploring the work’s style, not its plot. These are the main statements that are the consequences by what I have said above; they are tightly linked to each other. The second one, only seemingly paradoxical, needs to be accepted since it is the only one that give us a chance to uncover the pornographic character of a work to as great a degree of certainty as is achievable in defining any literary phenomena. In our critical endeavors, [this statement] could be particularly useful in that it once and for all liberates the critic from the risk of not only seeing pornography where in reality there is none, but also of stifling the freedom of artistic creativity in general. However rich in erotic facts the plot of a given work or its individual episodes are, however high these episodes may climb up the ladder of Eros, we do not have the right to call this work pornographic unless we have determined that its purpose was to arouse the instincts and passions, while the method of achieving this purpose was actually mere descriptiveness and documentation. And conversely: if there is no arousal of the instincts, the erotic plot is thus free from any suspicions and enjoys all the legality that in theory is inex- tricable from it anyway. There are no illegal plots in art since any plot is only part of the general motivation of the author’s views. Defending these views, he is entitled to using any plot that he feels suitable to him. Our job is to pass judgment whether or not he has been successful at this defense. Getting back to that novel I mentioned at the outset, I would like to state that erotic episodes of the novel are precisely such an example of expressing the general views that have nothing to do with the purposes that are at the basis of pornographic writings. In portraying these episodes, the author loses the sense of moderation that is not really characteristic of his prose anyway. It was this drawback in his work that I pointed out, but I had no reason for determining his goal to be deliberate pornography. 84 part two

All plots and topics are permissible. There are no bad topics, only bad goals and bad use of artistic devices. Whatever its plot, a true work of art cannot fall down to the level of pornography, for it has a different purpose and is composed using different devices. By the same token, pornography can imitate art, mimic it but cannot rise to it, for it has a different purpose and different devices. More than that, anti-artistic character of a literary device used in an erotic plot can create an almost pornographic effect despite the absence of pornographic intent in the author. For instance, in one of his earliest works, The Monk, Pushkin is partly pornographic, although he admits himself that he is not going to compete with Barkov.2 This happened only because the author was at the boyish stage of his artistic development. The most cunning of all demons lying in wait for inexperienced artists, the demon of using an inappropriate or bad literary device, guided his hand as he was working on it. On the contrary, the epic [long poem] Gavriiliada, a work incomparably more risqué in its plot, does not produce any pornographic effect as it is perfect artistically: by the time Pushkin wrote it, he had already turned into a master. The last conclusion that I would like to outline in this brief, schematic account concerns the legal and social side of the matter. Since it is not the plot but the style and meaning that are decisive in distinguishing what pornography is, one should wish that judicial and administrative decisions in such cases were based not on lawyers’ and policemen’s opinions but on deep stylistic expertise that is alone capable and competent to tell pornography from non-pornography. Madame Bovary and Les Fleurs du mal would not have been condemned had they been exposed to a serious stylistic study, whereas photographic studios on la rue Blondel [in Paris] would cease to exist on that same day when the difference between a photo of a naked damsel and Titian’s Venus were established. However, when the police investigate them from the perspective of the plot or topic, they cannot, of course, find any differences between them.

2 The infamous author of obscene, scabrous verses, Ivan Barkov (1732–1768), wrote in Russian vernacular using a vast array of the Russki mat / foul language words and their endless derivatives. Georgii IVANOV The Decay of the Atom

Fig. 6 Georgii Ivanov

Ivanov (1894–1958) is considered today as one of the most accomplished Sil- ver Age poets. He left Russia with his wife, fellow poet Irina Odoevtseva, in 1922. The first English translation of his highly experimental and complex prosaic work, The Decay of the Atom (1937), is indeed one of the highlights of this anthology. Compared to works of Baudelaire, Joyce and Henry Miller, this confessionary prose is undoubtedly unique in all Russian literature, especially thanks to its frank, often bizarre, sexual and erotic imagery. The following 1928 Ivanov poem could serve as an epigraph to The Decay of the Atom: We wander absently along some streets Staring at women and sitting in cafes But we never find genuine words, While we don’t want approximate ones any more. So what’s to be done? Return to Petersburg? Fall in love? Or blow up the Opera? Or simply lie down on the cold bed, Close one’s eyes and never wake up again . . . . 86 georgii ivanov: the decay of the atom

The poet’s situation is truly desperate: to resolve his spiritual stalemate, he considers four equally outrageous options: return to Bolshevik Russia (and probably end up dying in a labor camp); carry out a terrorist attack on Par- is’s major theater; commit suicide (probably by taking a conscious drug over- dose); or fall in love with someone. Clearly, for Ivanov the émigré, falling in love is about as insane and ultimately unthinkable as blowing up the Opera de Paris. Maybe the reason for this utter impossibility of the poet’s falling in love is that he lacks “genuine words” for expressing the kind of love that his Paris experience and situation require of him. Some critics believe that among numerous instances of Ivanov’s lasting influence and importance there is the fact that Vladimir Nabokov’s novella The Enchanter (1939), in many ways an early draft of the novel Lolita, was written largely as a response to the challenge of The Decay of the Atom,1 as Nabokov argues that Ivanov’s “global hideousness” can, in fact, be transformed by “harmonious art”.2

Then, descend! I might as easily say rise! It’s all the same. Faust, Part 2. I am breathing. Maybe this air is poisoned? But this is the only air that I am given to breathe. I perceive different things, first vaguely, then with agonizing keenness. Maybe it is vain to speak about these things but is life needed or not, is it smart or stupid that trees rustle, that evening comes, that rain pours? I am feeling a mix of emotions, of superiority and weakness toward things surrounding me: in my consciousness the laws of life are tightly interwoven with the laws of sleep. My perspective upon the world must be badly distorted due to that. But this is precisely the only thing that I still value, the only thing that separates me from the all- absorbing global hideousness. I live. I am walking along the street. I go into a café. This is today, this is my unique life. I order a glass of beer and drink it with pleasure. There is an elderly gentleman wearing a rosette at the next table. To me, these successful little old men ought to be destroyed.—You are old. You are wise.

1 Dolinin, Aleksandr. Истинная жизнь писателя Сирина. Работы о Набокове. СПб.: Академический проект, 2004. 156–158. 2 Russian original: Ivanov, Georgii. Распад атома. // Эрос. Россия. Серебряный век. Сост. А. Щуплов. Москва: Серебряный бор, 1992. 249–277. georgii ivanov: the decay of the atom 87

You are the father of the family. You have life experience. And you have a dog?—Get this! This mister is of a presentable appearance. This is highly valued. What nonsense: presentable. If only it were beautiful, wretched, ugly or whatever. But no, it is just presentable. In England, they say, even a profession exists—false witnesses of presentable appearance—that instills trust in judges. Not only does it instill trust, it is in itself an inexhaustible resource of self-confidence. One of the traits of global hideousness—it is presentable. * * * In essence, I am a happy man. That is, a man who is inclined to be happy. This is not so common. I want some of the simplest, commonest things. I want order. It is not my fault that order has been destroyed. I want spiritual calm. But my soul is like a well-shaken slop bucket—a herring tail, a dead rat, bits of food waste, and cigarette butts at one moment dive into the turbid depth, at another come to the surface, then they race one another. I want fresh air. Sweetish decay—the breathing of global hideousness—haunts me like fear. I am walking along the street. I think of various things. Salad, gloves . . . Of the people sitting in the café at the corner, someone will die first, some other last—everyone at his exact, precisely defined time. It is dusty and warm. This woman is beautiful of course, but I don’t like her. She is wearing a stylish dress and is smiling as she walks by, but I imagine her naked, lying on the floor with her skull split by an axe. I think of voluptuousness and repugnance, of sadistic murders, of the fact that I have lost you forever, it is over. It is “over”—what a pathetic word. As if not all words—if one thinks hard with his hearing—are equally pathetic and fearsome? A weak antidote for meaning that stops working surprisingly fast, and behind it there is mute and deaf emptiness of loneliness. But what did they understand in the pathetic and the fearsome—those believers in words and meaning, dreamers, children, unmerited favorites of fortune! I think of various things and, through them, I incessantly think of God. Sometimes it appears to me that God, likewise, incessantly thinks of me, through thousands of extraneous things. Light waves, orbits, oscillations, attractions, and through them, like a ray, incessant thinking about me. Sometimes I even imagine that my pain is a part of God’s essence. There- fore, the stronger my pain . . . A minute of weakness when one wants to say out loud: I believe, O Lord . . . Sobering up kicks in instantly after the minute of weakness. 88 georgii ivanov: the decay of the atom

I think about the cross on my neck that I have been wearing since childhood as one wears a revolver in the pocket—in case of danger it should protect, save. About the fatal, inevitable misfire. About the shining of false miracles taking turns in enchanting and disenchanting the world. And about the only authentic miracle—the very ineradicable desire for a miracle to come that lives in people despite everything. About the great significance of this. The imprint upon every, particularly Russian, consciousness. * * * Ah, this Russian, stirring, ruffling, musical, masturbating consciousness. Always circling around the impossible like insects around a candle. The laws of life grown together with the laws of sleep. Eerie metaphysical freedom and physical obstacles at every step. Inexhaustible source of superiority, weakness, failures of a genius. Ah, our bizarre types, to this day loafing around the world like forlorn shadows: Anglomaniacs, Tolstoyists, Russian snobs—the filthiest snobs in the world—and various Russian boys, sticky little sheets, and this sacred Russian type—a knight in the glorious order of intelligentsia, a scoundrel with a morbidly developed sense of respon- sibility. He is always on the watch; like a sleuthhound, he smells injustice everywhere; how could a normal person possibly keep up with him! Ah, our past and future, and our current penitential melancholy. “Oh, this little child was so alive” . . . Ah, this chasm of nostalgia around which only winds blow, bringing here from over there this hideous “International” and from here to over there this plaintive, astral, as if performing a funeral service over Russia, plea: “O Lord, bring back our Tsar” . . .3 * * * I am walking along the street thinking of God, peering at women’s faces. Here is a pretty one, I like her. I imagine the way she washes her genitals. Having spread her legs, her knees bent a little. The stockings are slipping down her knees; the eyes are somewhere in the velvet darkness, her expression is innocent, birdlike. I am thinking about the fact that an average Frenchwoman, as a rule, punctually washes her genitals but rarely washes her feet. What for? She is always in stockings and almost never takes off her shoes. I am thinking about France in general. About the nineteenth

3 Ivanov is quoting Nikolai Nekrasov’s 1850 poem “In the Street / Little Coffin” and then sarcastically referring to two famous anthems: the communist “International” and “God Save the Tsar!” (Russian national anthem from 1833 to 1917). georgii ivanov: the decay of the atom 89 century that is lingering on here. About the violets in La Madeleine, bread loaves soaking in urinals, teenagers going to their first communion, chest- nut trees, the spread of gonorrhea, the silver chill of “Ave Maria.” About the day the armistice was announced in 1919. Paris went nuts. Women just slept around. Soldiers climbed street lamps and crowed like roosters from there. Everyone was dancing, everyone was drunk. No one heard the voice of the new century saying: “Woe to the winners.” I think of the war. Of the fact that it is accelerated, much like in the cinema, thickened into an extract, into life. That the war per se had nothing to do with the misfortunes that befell the world. It was a shove that precipitated the inevitable, nothing else. Just like everything is dangerous for the gravely ill patient, the old order fell apart with the first shove. The patient ate a cucumber and died. The world war was that kind of a cucumber. I think of the banality of these thoughts and simultaneously feel the conciliatory endearment of banality, akin to light and warmth. I think of the epoch decaying in front of my eyes. Of two main varieties of women— either prostitutes or those proud of being able to withstand prostitution. Of inhuman global loveliness and humane global hideousness. Of nature, of the fact that it is so stupidly described by the literary classics. Of various dirty tricks people play on one another. Of compassion. Of the child who asked Santa for new eyes for his blind sister. Of the way Gogol was dying: the way they were shaving him, frightening him with the Last Judgment, applying leeches, forcing him into the bathtub. I recall an old lullaby: “A humming pussycat had an evil stepmother.” I go back again to the thought that I am a man inclined to be happy. I wanted the commonest of all things—love. From my man’s standpoint . . . Only man’s standpoint can exist, though. There is no such thing as woman’s standpoint. Woman, as such, does not exist at all. She is body and reflected light. But you just absorbed my light and left. And all my light left me then. We are still gliding along the surface of life. Along the periphery. Along the blue waves of the ocean. A semblance of harmony and order. Dirt, tenderness, sadness. Now we are going to dive. Give me your hand, unknown friend. * * * The heart has stopped beating. The lungs refuse to breathe. Torment that resembles delight. Everything is unreal, except the unreal, everything is meaningless except meaninglessness. A human is at the same time going blind and recovering his sight. Such symmetry and such a mess. The part 90 georgii ivanov: the decay of the atom that became larger than the whole—the part is everything, the whole is nothing. The guess that the clarity and completeness of the world is only a reflection of chaos in the mind of a calm lunatic. The guess that books, art are all depictions of heroic deeds and travels intended for those who will never go anywhere and will commit no [heroic] deeds. The guess that a huge spiritual life is growing and burning out in the atom, in a human who is unremarkable appearance-wise, but who is elect, sole, unique. A multitude of controversial guesses as though confirming, in a new way, an eternal imperceptible truth. Secret dreams.—Tell me what you are dreaming about in secret and I will tell you who you are.—Fine, I will try to tell you but will you be able to hear me? Everything has been bricked up smoothly; not a single bubble can penetrate to the surface of life. Atom, point, a mute and deaf genius, and under his feet there is a deep subsoil layer, the essence of life, the coal of rotten epochs. The world record of loneliness.—So respond to me, tell me what you are dreaming secretly about there, at the very bottom of your loneliness. * * * The history of my soul and the history of the world. They are interwoven like life and dream. They have grown together and into each other. As a background, as a tragic underpainting there is contemporary life behind them. Having embraced each other, merged, interwoven, they are speed- ing away into emptiness with a frightful velocity of darkness, behind which languidly, not even trying to catch up with it, light is moving. Fanfares. Morning. A spectacular [theater] curtain. There is no curtain at all. But a desire for firmness, for density is so powerful that I am feeling to the touch its woven thick silk. It has been woven by blue-eyed [female] masters. One was a bride . . . It was not woven anywhere. Missed. Missed. The dead rat is lying there in the slop bucket, amongst cigarette butts shaken out of the ashtray, next to a little wad of cotton wool, with which the bride washed her genitals for the last time. The rat was wrapped into a piece of newspaper but in the bucket it got unfolded and surfaced— one can still read some scraps of the day before yesterday’s news off it. The other day it was still news; the butt was smoking in a mouth; the rat was still alive, the hymen was untouched. Now this all, mixed up, getting colorless, vanishing, destroying itself, is flying away into the void, speed- ing away with a frightful velocity of darkness, behind which, as slow as a turtle, not even trying to catch up, light is moving. A blade from a safety razor, caught on a swollen butt, reflects rainbow sunlight through the slops and aims it at the rat’s muzzle. The rat shows her sharp teeth, there is ichor on them. How could it happen that such georgii ivanov: the decay of the atom 91 an old, experienced, God-fearing rat did not protect herself and ate the poison? How could the minister who signed the Treaty of Versailles in his old age be caught stealing because of a little girl? Presentable appearance, stiff, starched collar, a knight commander cross, “Germany must pay” and in support of that axiom [there comes] a firm stroke on a historic parch- ment, with a historic golden pen. A little girl [appears] all of a sudden, her stockings, knees, soft warm breath, a soft pink vagina—and the Treaty of Versailles and all his regalia are gone. The defamed old man is dying in his prison bed. [His] unattractive, respectable widow wrapped in a crepe is leaving for the provinces forever; the kids are ashamed of the name of their father; colleagues in the senate are shaking their bald heads with sadness and reproach. But the culprit of all this dirt and nonsense has left her behind, passed her ahead a long time ago, at the minute when the bedroom door was shut down behind him, the key clicked, the past disappeared; only the girl on a wide bed has remained; a forged bill, bliss, disgrace, death. Having left his destiny behind, he is flying now in the icy space, and eternal darkness is rustling with the tails of his standoffish, old- fashioned frock-coat. Ahead of him cigarette butts and historic treaties, combed-out hair and faded global ideas are flying; behind him some other hair, treaties, butts, ideas, spits. If the darkness takes him in the long run to the foot of the altar, he will not tell God: “Germany must pay.” “Oh you, my last love,” he will mumble embarrassedly. * * * Copulating with a dead girl. The body was very soft, only a little chilly, as after a bathing. With tensity, with special delight. She was lying there as if asleep. I did no malice to her. Just the opposite, for these several spas- modic minutes the life was still continuing around her, if not for her. The star was growing pale outside the window; the jasmine was withering. The seed had dripped out, and I wiped it off with a handkerchief. I lit a cigarette off a thick wax candle. Missed. Missed. You took away my light leaving me in the darkness. Inside you, without any exception, all the charm of the world is concentrated. And I was agonizingly sorry that you would be old, ill, unattractive, that you would be dying in anguish as I would not be around, would not be able to lie to you that you are on the mend, would not be able to hold your hand. I should be glad that I would not have to go through this torment in fact. Meanwhile, this was the main thing, maybe the only thing that consti- tuted love. The horror at this very thought was always the star of my life. And you have not been around for a long time but it is still shining outside my window. 92 georgii ivanov: the decay of the atom

I am in the forest. A frightening, magic snowy landscape of an ignorant, disturbed, doomed soul. Jars with cancer tumors: bowels, liver, throat, womb, breasts. Pale miscarriages in a greenish solution. In 1920 in Peters- burg this alcohol was for sale as a drink—they called it, accordingly, “baby booze” (mladentsovka). Puke, phlegm, odorous mucus crawling through the bowels. Carrion. Human carrion. A striking resemblance between the odor of cheese and the odor of sweaty feet. Christmas at the North Pole. Shining and snow. The cleanest shroud of winter covering life. * * * Evening. July. People walking along the street. People of the thirties of the twentieth century. The sky is beginning to darken; soon the stars will show through. The stars of the thirties of the twentieth century. One can describe today’s evening, Paris, the street, the game of shadows and light in the feathery sky, the game of fear and hope in the lonely human soul. One can do it intelligently, giftedly, figuratively, verisimilarly. But it is impossible to create a miracle—the falseness of art cannot pass for the truth. Not long ago it was still a possibility. And no . . . Something that was possible yesterday today became impossible, unfeasible. One cannot believe in the emergence of a new Werther who will cause the clicking of delighted shots of enchanted, enraptured suicides all over Europe. One cannot imagine a notebook of verses, leafing through which the contemporary man will wipe unwanted tears and look at the sky, at the same evening sky, with a nagging hope. Impossible. So impossible that it is unbelievable that it used to be possible. New iron laws bind- ing the world like raw leather know no consolation by art. More than that, these yet unclear, already inevitable, soullessly just laws born in the new world or giving birth to it also have retroactive effect: not only can one not create a new brilliant consolation, one cannot even console oneself with the old one. There are people who can still weep over Anna Karenina’s fate. They still stand on the soil disappearing together with them, into which the foundation of the theater had been dug, where Anna, leaning her elbows on the velvet of the box, shining with torment and beauty, was experiencing her disgrace. This shining hardly reaches us any longer. Just some of it, as somewhat dimmed, slanting beams of light—either as the last gleam of things lost or as a confirmation that the loss is irreparable. Soon everything will fade away forever. There will remain a game of intellect and talent, amusing reading, not compelling one to believe in itself and not instilling faith any more. Of The Three Musketeers kind. This is georgii ivanov: the decay of the atom 93 what Tolstoy himself felt earlier than anyone else—an inescapable line, a boundary behind which there is no consolation by fictional beauty, not a single tear [shed] over a fictional fate. * * * I want the simplest, the commonest things. I want to start weeping, I want to be consoled. I want to look at the sky with a nagging hope. I want to write you a long farewell letter, an insulting one, celestial, dirty, the fond- est one in the world. I want to call you an angel, a stinker, wish you happiness and bless you, and also tell you that wherever you are, wherever you find shelter, my blood will always whirl around you in myriads of its unforgiving and never forgiven corpuscles. I want to forget, get some rest, get on a train and go to Russia, drink beer and eat crawfish on a warm evening at a floating café on the Neva. I want to overcome the disgusting sensation of stupor: people don’t have faces, words don’t have sound, nothing has a meaning. I want to break it, no matter how. I simply want to catch my breath, to gulp some air. But there is no air at all. The bright light and the crush in the café give you a fleeting illusion of freedom: you have dodged it, you made it through, death just floated by. Not begrudging twenty francs, you can get a pale pretty young thing who is walking slowly along the sidewalk and halts having met with a man’s gaze. If now you nod at her, the illusion will consolidate, get stronger, turn pink with a deposit of life like a ghost who has just swallowed a mouthful of blood, [and] stretch over ten, twelve, twenty minutes. Woman. Flesh. The instrument from which man is able to derive this only note from the divine scale that he is given to hear. The lamp is alight under the ceiling. The face is leaning back on the pillow. One can think that she is my bride. One can think that I have made the young thing tipsy and now am hastily, thievishly raping her. One does not have to think at all, shuddering, listening intensely, hearing amazing things, awaiting the arrival of a minute when woe and happiness, good and evil, life and death will intersect in their orbits as during an eclipse, ready to merge into one, when the eerie greenish color of life-death, happiness- torment will gush out from the perished past, from the extinguished pupils of your eyes. * * * The history of my soul and the history of the world. They have been interwoven and grown into one another. The present is behind them as a tragic background. The seed that could not impregnate anything has leaked 94 georgii ivanov: the decay of the atom back; I wiped it off with my handkerchief. And yet, here, while this was still going on, life was still flickering. The history of my soul. I want to embody it but only know how to disembody. I envy a writer refining his style, a painter mixing his colors, a musician immersed in his sounds, all these not yet extinct people of a sensitive and heartless, long- and short-sighted, widely known, totally needless breed who believe that a plastic reflection of life is a victory over it. If only one had a talent, a special creative throbbing in the brain, in fingers, in the ear; one just needs to take a little something from fiction, a little something from reality, a little from sadness, a little from dirt, and smoothen it all like kids do to sand with a toy shovel, decorate it with stylistics and imagination like they would ice a cake—and the business is complete, everything has been saved; the meaninglessness of life, the vanity of suffering, loneliness, torment, sticky nauseating fear have been transformed by the harmony of art. I know the value of this and still envy them: they are blessed. Blessed are the sleeping, blessed are the dead. Blessed is a connoisseur in front of a Rembrandt painting who is piously convinced that the game of shadows and light on the face of the old woman is a global triumph, next to which the old woman herself is a nonentity, a speck of dust, a zero. Blessed are the aesthetes. Blessed are the ballet maniacs. Blessed are Stravinsky’s listeners and Stravinsky himself. Blessed are the shadows of a departing world finishing its last, sweet, and false dreams having lulled humankind to sleep for so long. As they are departing, almost gone now, they take with them an enormous imagined space. What are we going to be left with? With a conviction that the old woman is infinitely more important than Rembrandt. Bewildered about what we should do with this old woman. With an agonizing desire to save and console her. With a clear aware- ness that we will save nobody and have nothing to console anyone with. With a feeling that it is only through the chaos of controversies that one can fight one’s way through to the truth. That one cannot rely on reality itself: photography lies and any document is a priori counterfeit. That all the average, classic, conciliated is unthinkable, impossible. That the sense of moderation, like an eel, eludes the hands of its catcher, and that this elusiveness is the last of its available creative features. That, when finally it has been caught, the catcher holds banality in his hands. “In his arms, the child was dead.”4 That everyone around has a dead child in his hands.

4 This is a quote from Vasilii Zhukovsky’s 1818 Russian translation of Goethe’s poem Der Erlkönig (1782). georgii ivanov: the decay of the atom 95

That anyone who wants to break through the chaos of controversies to eternal truth, at least to its pale reflection, has only one choice left: to go over life as an acrobat on a tightrope, over the unsightly, tattered, controversial transcript of life. * * * Photography lies. A human document is counterfeit. Having gotten lost in the building of the Berlin Polizeipräsidium I accidentally walked into this corridor. The walls were covered with photographs. There were tens of them, they all portrayed the same. This was the way these suicides or murder victims were found by police. A young German is hanging on his suspenders; his shoes taken off for comfort’s sake are next to an over- turned chair. An old woman: a large stain on her chest shaped like a rooster—a clot of blood from the slashed throat. A fat naked prostitute with her stomach ripped open. An artist who shot himself due to hunger or unhappy love or both. Under his demolished skull there is a luxuriant artistic bow; next to him on his easel there are some branches and clouds, unfinished daub of sacred art. Goggle eyes, bitten tongues, vile postures, disgusting wounds, and all of it together is monotonous, academic, not scary. Not a single curl of bowels protruding from the ripped stomach, not a single grimace, not a single bruise eluded the lens of the camera but the main thing did; there is no main thing. I look and I see nothing that would ruffle me, make my soul shudder. I make an effort—still nothing. And all of a sudden a thought comes that you are breathing here on earth; all of a sudden in my memory, just like in real life, there appears your lovely, heartless face. And I instantly see and hear everything—all the grief and torment, all the vain entreaties, all the dying words. The way the old woman wheezed with her throat slashed; the way the prostitute was fighting with the sadist tangled in her bowels; the way the ungifted, hungry artist—as though it was me—was dying. The way the bulb was alight. The way the dawn was lightening up. The way the alarm-clock was beating. The way the hand was approaching five. The way [first] indecisive, then having decided, he licked his lips. The way he clenched the revolver in his clumsy, sweaty hand. The way the icy muzzle touched his burning mouth. The way he hated them all, those who remained alive, and the way he envied them. I would like to go out to the seashore, lie down on the sand, close my eyes, feel the breathing of God over my face. I want to start from afar— from the blue dress, from the quarrel, from the foggy winter day. “The hills 96 georgii ivanov: the decay of the atom of Georgia are covered by the nightly haze,”5—approximately with these words I would like to speak to life. Life no longer understands this language. The soul has not learnt another one yet. This is how harmony is morbidly dying out in the soul. Maybe, when it finally dies, when it falls off like a dry scab, the soul will again feel primordially light. But the transition is slow and agonizing. The soul is scared. It seems to her that all the things that have been invigorating her are now drying up one after another. It seems to her that she is drying up herself. She cannot keep silent and has forgotten how to speak. And so she spasmodically mumbles like a deaf mute, makes ugly grimaces. “The hills of Georgia are covered by the nightly haze,”—she wants to pronounce it clearly and triumphantly, glorifying the Creator and herself. And with disgust that resembles delight she mumbles foul invectives written on a metaphysical fence, something like “dil fok shil kuntifook.” The dark blue dress, the quarrel, the foggy winter day. A thousand other dresses, quarrels, days. A thousand feelings, unaccountably fleeting through the soul of every human. Only some of them that received citi- zenship rights, entered the literature, became current, part of the conversation. And the others—innumerable, not yet having found their literary expression, not yet separated from their obscure uterine core. But with that, they are still not a bit less flat: thousands of unembodied banalities patiently awaiting their Tolstoy. The guess that art, creativity in a common sense, is none other than a hunt for new and new banalities. The guess that harmony to which it aspires is none other than some supreme banality. The guess that a true path of the soul is winding along somewhere on the side—in a spin, spinning—through global hideousness. I want to talk about my soul in simple, convincing words. I know that there are no such words. I want to tell a story of the way I loved you, the way I was dying, the way I died, the way they put a cross over my grave and the way time and worms turned this cross into wood dust. I want to collect a little handful of this dust, look at the sky for the last time and blow at my palm with relief. I want different, equally unfeasible things— to inhale the odor of your hair at the back of your head and still be able to retrieve from the chaos of rhythms that only rhythm from which, as a detonated rock, the global hideousness must collapse. I want to tell a story of a man who was lying on a messy bed, thinking, thinking and thinking how to save himself, how to fix things—and not being able to come up

5 The beginning line from a 1829 poem by Aleksandr Pushkin. georgii ivanov: the decay of the atom 97 with anything. Of the way he fell asleep, the way he woke up, the way he recalled everything, the way he said out loud, as though of something extraneous: “He was not a Caesar. He only had this love. But it contained everything—power, crown, immortality. But all has collapsed, [his] honor has been lost, the shoulder straps have been torn off.” I want to explain with simple, convincing words a multitude of magic, unique things— about the dark blue dress, the quarrel, the foggy winter day. And also I want to warn the world of a horrible enemy—pity. I want to yell so that everyone would hear me: people, brothers, join hands firmly and swear to be pitiless to one another. Otherwise it—the main enemy of order—will pounce and tear you apart. I want to retrieve your face out of emptiness for the last time, your body, your tenderness, your heartlessness, to bring together the mixed, decom- posed yours and mine, as a little handful of ashes on a palm, and blow at it with relief. But pity confuses everything again, again it hinders me. I see the smog of someone else’s city again. A beggar is grinding his barrel organ; a little monkey shuddering from cold is going round the gawkers with a little saucepan. Those, sullen under their umbrellas, unwillingly throw in some copper coins. Is it going to be enough for one-night shelter, to take cover, hugging, until next morning . . . This occurred to me in the midst of a noisy dancing party—amid cham- pagne, music, laughter, rustling of silk, odor of perfumes. This was one of your happiest days. You were shining with youth, loveliness, heartlessness. You were having fun, you were triumphing over life. I glanced at you, smiling, surrounded by people. And I saw this: the little monkey, smog, umbrellas, loneliness, misery. And of acrid pity, as of unbearable glitter, I lowered my eyes. * * * The shuddering that causes pity. The shuddering that necessarily transforms into the feeling of vengeance. For the deaf child, for the meaningless life, for the humiliations, for the hole-ridden soles. To avenge the well-to-do world—the pretext does not matter. “He who has the heart”6 knows this. This is an almost mechanical transition from confused pity to—“you wait, I’ll show you!”—another form of impotence. Even the little beasts were nervous, whispered something to each other, [and] took a

6 Apparently a quote from Heinrich Heine’s poem but also a line from Osip Mandel- stam’s 1918 poem “The Twilight of Freedom.” 98 georgii ivanov: the decay of the atom while to compose a “Pamphlet-Protest”: “You who torture cats. . .” They asked if it was possible to publish it in the newspapers so that everyone would read it.7 The little beasts were inseparable from us. They ate from our plates and slept in our bed. The main ones were two little Brandishers. The Brandisher Green Eyes was good-natured, sweet, and never hurt anyone. The Grey Eyes, when he grew up, turned out to be a character. He could bite you occasionally. They had been found under a bench in the subway, in a box of dates. The box had a note attached to it: Little Brandishers, also known as Brandishers, also known as Brandishing Peo- ple. Of Australian descent. Asking you to love, feed and walk them in the Boulogne forest. There were other little beasts as well: Dear Fellow Zhukhla, Fryshtik, Little Chinaman, and silly Tsutik who would answer all questions with the same “Tsutik is here.” There was old Shrew with a short fish tail, a little rough on the outside but the tenderest one inside. Somewhere on the side, never accepted to the company, instilling antipathy and fear, gloomy von Bedbug was found. The little beasts had their own way of doing things, their habits, their philosophy, their views on life. They had their own beast country, the bor- ders of which, like by an ocean, were washed by sleep. The country was vast and not fully explored. It was known that in the south the camels lived; on Fridays a white horse would come over to wash and shear them. In the utmost North a New Year Tree was always lit up and eternal Christ- mas was on. The beasts spoke a mixed language. It included some original Austra- lian words. There were words remade from common ones into the Austra- lian language. For instance, in their letters they would address each other “Lowly Distinguishe . . . .” and then on the envelope they would write “To Your Excellent Sirloin.” They liked dancing, ice-cream, silk bowties, holidays, and name days. That was the way they looked at life: What does a year consist of?—Of three hundred and sixty five little holidays.—And a month?—Of thirty name days. They were nice little beasts. They tried to decorate our life as much as they could. They did not ask for ice-cream whenever they knew we

7 The whole plot line about the “little beasts” may be a mischievous (if somewhat child- ish) parody of the circle of decadent Petersburg writers and poets young Ivanov was part of in pre-revolutionary Russia. georgii ivanov: the decay of the atom 99 had no money. Even when they were very sad, they would dance and celebrate name days. They turned away and tried not to listen when they overheard something bad. “Little beasts, little beasts,” the dreadful von Bedbug would whisper in the evening from his crack, “life passes away, winter is approaching. You will be covered by the snow, you will freeze, you will die, little beasts—you who love life so much.” But they would just cling to each other more tightly, plug their little ears and calmly, with dignity, reply: “It doesn’t bite us.”8 * * * A man walks around the streets, thinking of different things, peeping into someone else’s windows. His imagination works without his knowledge. He does not notice its work. He sits down in a café, drinking beer and reading a newspaper. Debates in the house of parliament. Cars [on sale] by installment. He dozes off and dreams of nonsense. Ink spilled on the tablecloth. A fish swam by—the ink disappeared. One has to lock the door but the key does not fit the keyhole. Public opinion in England. A cyclone. It turns out that the fish is in fact the key, which is why it did not actually fit. The sleeping man suddenly wakes up. No fish, no public opinion. To sit in a café, to wander around the streets, to peep into someone else’s windows is still a better consolation than Anna Karenina or some sort of Madame Bovary. To spy on some lovers who sit clinging to one another over unfinished coffee, then stray onto the streets, finally, having looked around, go into a cheap hotel, is the same as, if not superior to, the most perfect verses about love. “A little foot steps [here], a golden lock curls [here].”9 Here it is, the little foot, pattering against the asphalt of a Montmartre sidewalk, here is the golden lock flashing by and disappearing behind the glass door of the hotel. This is today, this is a flickering fleeting moment of my unique life—of course, can one even compare— this is superior to all the verses altogether. The foot pattering has stopped, the lock flashed and disappeared behind the door. We shall stand here and wait. Here it is, the window has just lit up on the first floor. Here it is, the curtain has just been pulled. The lackey got tipped a franc and left them alone. A lamp under the ceiling, motley wallpaper, a white enameled bidet. Maybe this is for the

8 Most of Ivanov’s puns are difficult to translate. This particular one is based on the graphic and phonetic proximity between Russian verbs “kasatsia” / concern, bother and “kusatsya” / bite. 9 The final two lines from an 1828 poem by Aleksandr Pushkin. 100 georgii ivanov: the decay of the atom first time. Maybe this is the most blissful love in the world. Maybe Napo- leon fought and “Titanic” sank only for these people to be able to lie down in bed next to one another tonight. On top of the blanket, on top of the starched stone-like bedsheet [there is] a hasty, clumsy, immortal embrace. The knees in sliding down stockings are drawn widely apart; the hair is disarranged over the pillow, the face is charmingly distorted. Ah, more, a little more. Quicker, quicker. “Wait a minute. Do you know what it is? This is our unique life. Some- day, in a hundred years, they will write a long poem about us but there will be only clear rhymes and lies in it. The truth is here. The truth is this day, this hour, this fleeting moment. No one has drawn your knees apart, and here I am, in the bright light, on a white well-ironed bedsheet, uncer- emoniously drawing them apart. You are ashamed and in pain. Every drop of your pain and shame enters full weight into my mindless triumph.” Who are these two? Ah, what does it matter? They are not here now. There is only shining, flickering on the outside, while this is still on. Only the tension, rotation, combustion, blissful regeneration of a secret meaning of life. An icy peak of global loveliness lit by a fleeting light. Spermatic cords, ovaries, the broken hymen, bird cherry, drawn-apart knees, mind- lessness, stars, saliva, bedsheet, little muscles are throbbing, completely, completely, oh . . . o . . . . oh . . . The only note available to man, its eerie knell. Ah, more, a little more; quicker, quicker. The last convulsions. Hot semen leaking toward a contracting, vibrating womb. Desire has made its full way along the spiral thrown deep into eternity and come back, into emptiness. “It was so beautiful that it cannot end with death,” Tolstoy writes after his wedding night. * * * A man is sitting in a café. An ordinary man, a zero. One of those of whom they write after a catastrophe: ten died, twenty-six were injured. Not a director of a trust, not an inventor, not a Lindbergh, not a Chaplin, not a Montherlant. He has read the newspaper and now knows what mood public opinion in England is in. He has drunk his coffee and calls up the garçon to pay his check. He is absently thinking about what he should do next—go to the cinema or save some money for a lottery ticket. He is calm, he is in a peaceful mood, he is asleep, he dreams of nonsense. And all of a sudden, unexpectedly he sees in front of him the black hole of his loneliness. The heart stops beating, the lungs refuse to breathe. Torment that resembles delight. georgii ivanov: the decay of the atom 101

The atom is motionless. It is asleep. Everything is smoothly bricked up; no bubble will make it to the surface of life. But what if [we] pick at it. Stir its sleeping essence. Catch upon it, shake it, split it. Run a million volts through the soul and then immerse it in ice. Love someone more than yourself and then see a hole of loneliness, a black icy hole. A man, a little man, a zero is looking absently in front of himself. He sees black emptiness, and in it, like a passing lightning, the inscrutable essence of life. Thousands of nameless, unanswered questions being lit up for a moment with a white light and momentarily absorbed by the dark. Consciousness, flickering, exhausted, is waiting for an answer. There is no answer to anything. Life poses questions and does not answer them. Love poses . . . God has posed a question to a human—by a human—but has not given an answer. And the human [is] doomed to only ask, incapable of answering anything. A perennial synonym of failure—an answer. How many excellent questions have been posed throughout the history of the world and what kind of answers were given to them . . . Two billion inhabitants of the globe. Each is complex in his agonizing, unique, identical, good for nothing, hateful complexity. Each, like an atom inside a nucleus, is confined inside the impenetrable armor of loneliness. Two billion inhabitants of the globe—two billion exceptions to the rule. But at the same time [they are] the rule. Everyone is disgusting. Everyone is unhappy. No one can change anything and understand anything. My brother Goethe, my brother concierge, neither of you knows what you are doing and what life is doing to you. A point, atom, through the soul of which now a million volts are flying. Now they will split her. Now motionless impotence will deliver dreadful explosive power. Now, now. The earth is shaking already. Already something squeaked in the piles of the Eiffel Tower. A simoom with its turbid spurts has started whirling in the desert. The ocean is drowning ships. Trains are derailing. Everything is being torn, crawling, fusing, crumbling to ashes—Paris, the street, time, your image, my love. The man, the little man is sitting [there] as his gaze comes to a stop. The lackey comes by, gives him his change. The man takes a breath, stands up. He lights a cigarette, he walks along the street. His heart is not broken yet—it is still beating in his chest. Global hideousness has not collapsed—here it is, like a rock, propping up the world as usual. The dark blue dress, the quarrel, the foggy winter day. A desire to talk, an aspiration to sing—about one’s love, about one’s soul. Drip with, choke on, simple convincing words, the words that do not exist. 102 georgii ivanov: the decay of the atom

How did our love begin? Banally, banally. As everything beautiful, it began banally. Probably harmony is in fact banality. Probably it makes no sense to grumble at this. Probably it was the only available way for everyone—as an acrobat on a tightrope, to go over life, upon the agonizing feeling of life. The elusive feeling that appears in the last physical intimacy, last inaccessibility, in tenderness tearing the soul apart, in the loss of this all, forever, forever. Dawn outside the window. Desire has completed the full circle and gone into the earth. The child has been conceived. What is the child for? There is no immortality. Immortality cannot but exist. What do I need immortality for if I am so lonely? Dawn outside the window. On the crumpled bedsheet in my arms there lie all the innocent loveliness of the world and the bewildered question of what to do with it. It is divine, it is inhuman. What should a human do with its inhuman shining? A human is wrinkles, bags under his eyes, lime in his soul and blood; a human is, first and foremost, a doubt in his divine right to do evil. “A human starts with woe,” as some poet once said.10 Who would argue with this. A human starts with woe. Life starts tomorrow. The Volga flows into the Caspian Sea. Dyr bu shchyl ubeshchur. * * * This day, this hour, this flickering minute. Thousands of similar days and minutes, identical, unique. This feathery Paris sunset dimming before my eyes. Thousands of the same sunsets, over the present, over the future, over the perished centuries. Thousands of eyes gazing with the same hope into the same shining emptiness. An eternal sigh of global loveliness: I am fading away, I am dying out, I no longer exist. “The hills of Georgia are covered by the nightly haze.” Now it is likewise covering the hill of the Montmartre. On roofs, on an intersection, on a café sign, on a half-circle of a urinal where with alarming noise, just like in the Aragvi,11 the water is purling. There is a bench opposite the urinal. There is an old man in rags on the bench. He is smoking a butt he picked up from the pavement. He has an indifferent, dozing air about him. But this is pretense. On the alert, he follows those entering the part of the restroom where a piece of bread soaked with urine is located. Here is a worker with a thick neck unzipping his pants on his way. Having spread his legs widely, he urinates over the

10 A line from a then-popular poem by émigré author Aleksei Eisner (1932). 11 A major river in Georgia. georgii ivanov: the decay of the atom 103 bread. A blissful convulsion in the soul of the lousy little old man. Now, having looked around, having hastily folded the soaked newspaper on which one can still read scraps of yesterday’s news, he will take the bread home. Now, now, munching, washing it down with red wine, imagining in minute detail the worker with a thick neck, the boy in yellow shoes, all of them, all who soaked this half-kilo of gros pain with their tart, warm urine. Now, now. Torment that resembles delight, a blissful convulsion. Leaving, he mumbles something on his way. Maybe his deaf and mute soul is trying to moo something in its own language—“The hills of Georgia . . .” Sunsets, thousands of sunsets. Over Russia, over America, over the future, over the perished centuries. The wounded Pushkin is leaning his elbow on the snow, and red sunset is gushing into his face. Sunset in a mortuary, sunset in an operating room over the ocean, over the Alps, in a clapboard camp outhouse: all the shades of yellow and brown, scratches on the walls, complex stench interrupted by freshness blowing through the cracks. A fresh recruit, a pink boy, holding the door with one hand is hastily masturbating with the other. Having choked, having produced a muffled cry, he comes. About half a glass, pouring over his fingers with sticky warmth, startling the flies, slaps into the brown medley. The fellow’s face turns grey. He listlessly pulls up his pants. He has actually failed to imagine his bride left in the village. He will certainly be killed in action, maybe even this year. Sunset over the Tour de Temple. Sunset over the Lubyanka. Sunset on the day of declaring the war and on the day of the armistice: everyone was dancing, everyone was drunk, no one has heard a voice say: “Woe to the winners.” Sunset in the room where we used to live long ago: the dark blue dress was lying on this chair. * * * A Petersburg early sunset died out long ago. Akakii Akakievich is groping his way from work toward the Obukhov Bridge. Has the overcoat been stolen yet? Or is he still dreaming about a new overcoat? The lost Rus- sian man stands in someone else’s street, in front of someone else’s window, and his masturbating consciousness imagines every breath, every convulsion, every fold on the bedsheet, every throbbing little muscle. The woman has already deceived him, has already vanished in the feathery evening sky, hasn’t she? Or does he just imagine his meeting with her? It does not really matter. The sunset died out long ago. The workday ended long ago. In an attic near the Obukhov Bridge warm beer is gurgling, tobacco smoke is curling. 104 georgii ivanov: the decay of the atom

“He was a titular counselor, she was a general’s daughter,”12 the velvety guitar is sighing mellowly, quietly. A bureaucratic myth is being born in the attic—as self-defense from and counterbalance to the icy myth of Pushkin’s clarity. The myth is the sulfuric acid, the secret dream, which will disfigure this clarity, corrode it, corrupt it. Akakii Akakievich gets a salary, copies papers, saves money for an overcoat, dines and drinks tea. But this is all superficial, a dream, nonsense infinitely remote from the essence of things. The point, the soul is motionless and so small that one cannot see it even through the most powerful microscope. But inside, underneath an impenetrable nucleus of loneliness, [there is] a dreadful explosive force, secret dreams, caustic as sulfuric acid. The atom is motionless. It is soundly asleep. It dreams of work and the Obukhov Bridge. But if one shakes it, picks at it, splits it . . . The General’s daughter, Psyche,13 a little angel, all in muslin, runs into His Excellency’s study, and the pettifogger, the little man, the zero, the slavish shadow in someone else’s frock-coat makes a low bow to her. This is it. Psyche will babble: bonjour, papa; kiss the general’s ruddy cheek, flash a smile, rustle her muslin and flutter away. And nobody knows, nobody can guess that this is all just a show, a dream, a fuss . . . With his head bedimmed by the boredom of life and beer, to the velvety murmur of the guitar, Akakii Akakievich is leaving the fuss and the surface and descends into the essence of things. His secret dreams sur- round Psyche’s image, and gradually his covetous thought transforms into her desired flesh. The obstacles, so insurmountable during the day, fall by themselves. He silently slides along the empty sleeping city and, unno- ticed, sneaks into the dark apartments of His Excellency, like a noiseless shadow, ghosts his way between mirrors and statues over the parquet and floor carpets toward the bedroom of the little angel. He opens the door, stops in the doorway and sees the “paradise that does not exist even in heavens.”14 He sees her little underwear thrown around the chair, her sleepy little face on the pillow, a little bench on which she puts her little foot every morning in order to pull on her snow-white stocking . . . He was

12 A quote from an 1859 popular Russian love song by Pyotr Veinberg. Akakii Akaki- evich Bashmachkin’s rank in Gogol’s Overcoat (1842) was also that of titular counselor, the lowest civilian rank in Russia. 13 In Greek mythology, Psyche was the butterfly-winged goddess of the soul, wife of Eros god of love. 14 A quote from Nikolai Gogol’s The Diary of a Madman (1834). georgii ivanov: the decay of the atom 105 a titular counselor, she was a general’s daughter. And now . . . Never mind, never mind, silence . . . To the murmur of the guitar, bedimmed by secret dreams, he mate- rializes Psyche in his persistent, morbid, focused on one single point for many long years imagination, makes her come to his attic, lie down on his bed. And so she comes over, lies down, raises her muslin skirt, spreads her naked satin knees. He was a titular counselor; she was a general’s daughter. At every meeting he would slavishly bow to her, not daring to raise his eyes from his patched boots. And now, having spread her knees widely, smiling an innocent smile of a little angel, she submissively waits for him to enjoy himself with her to the maximum, completely, completely. * * * “Stand in your beauty, Peter’s city, and do not yield,”15 contrary to his foreboding, cheerfully exclaims Pushkin, who has scored so many on his Don Juan’s list. “Never mind, never mind, silence,” Gogol mumbles, having rolled his eyes into emptiness, masturbating under a cold bedsheet. “Stand and do not yield.” On the surface of life, in clear, albeit sunset, rays, it would appear so. Here is Paris, still standing. This warm summer evening it is beautiful. Chestnuts, automobiles, midinettes in summer dresses. The magic of flashing streetlamps around the most hideous statues in the world. Scattered flowers on stands. The Sacré-Cœur [Basilica] against the darkening sky. Despite the foreboding, the soul is turning toward life. Here it is, in light feathery clouds.—“I am fading away, I am dying out, there is no longer me.” And just like in the Aragvi, solemnly, sadly, faintly the water is purling in the urinal. But the sunset is darkening quickly, and nocturnal shadows are taking hold of the man even quicker. They are taking him down to such a depth that, having returned to the surface, he will not recognize it. But he will not return anyway. In the black happiness, into which—in a spin, spinning—the soul is spiraling, what would it need this long shaken unshakability and its long disfigured beauty for? Peter [the Great] will be pulled out of his coffin and with a cigarette butt in his mouth be placed against the wall of the Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral to the laughter of the Red Army soldiers, and so what, the Cathedral is not going to vanish into thin air. [Baron George] Dantes will kill Pushkin, and Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev will shake his hand politely and so what, his hand

15 From Pushkin’s long poem The Bronze Horseman (1833). 106 georgii ivanov: the decay of the atom will not wither away. And what business is all this of ours, here at the very bottom of our souls. Our identical, different, deaf mute souls have smelled a common purpose and—in a spin, spinning—are spiraling toward it. Our disgusting, unhappy, lonely souls have merged into one and in a spin, spinning are forcing their way, as best they can, through global hideousness to God. The pale pretty young thing slows down having met the man’s gaze. If you explain to her that you do not like to do it in stockings, she, expecting a good tip, will willingly wash her feet. A bit swollen after the warm wash, with shortly trimmed little toenails, naïve, unaccustomed to someone looking at them, kissing, pressing his hot forehead against them—the feet of the streetwalking young thing will turn into the little feet of Psyche. * * * The heart stops beating. The lungs refuse to breathe. A snow-white little stocking has been taken off Psyche’s little foot. While slowly, slowly the knee, the ankle, the soft childlike heel were being revealed, years were passing by. An eternity had elapsed before the little toes came in sight . . . And now—everything has come true. There is nothing else to wait for, nothing to dream about, nothing to live for. There is nothing any more. Only the naked little feet of the little angel pressed against the stiffened lips, and the only witness [is] God. He was a titular counselor, she was a general’s daughter. And now, now. . . The bedsheet is cold as ice. The night is dimly seen through the window. The sharp birdlike profile [of a head] is thrown back on the pillow. Ah, more, a little more, quicker, quicker. Everything has been achieved, but the soul has not fully satiated itself and is afraid that it will not man- age to satiate itself. There is still time, the night is still on, the rooster has not crowed yet, and the atom, shaken, has not burst into myriads of particles—what else could one do? How else can one penetrate deeper into one’s triumph, into the essence of things, with what else should one pluck [the soul], pick at it, split it? Hold on, Psyche, hold on, my dear. You think this is it? The summit, the end, the limit? No, you will not trick me. Silence and night. The naked childlike little toes are pressed against the stiffened lips. They smell like innocence, tenderness, rosewater. But no, no—you will not trick me. In a spin, spinning, a covetous passion is twisting, through visibility and surface, ecstatically trying to detect its own vital shameful essence in the angelic flesh of the dream. “Show me, through innocence and rosewater, what do your white little feet smell georgii ivanov: the decay of the atom 107 like, Psyche? They smell the same as mine, little angel, the same as mine, my dear. You will not trick me, no way!” And Psyche knows: it is impossible to trick me. Her feet are trembling in the tenacious covetous hands and, trembling, give away the last thing she has: the most secret, the most valuable as the most shameful one: the lightest, ephemeral and yet not destroyable by any loveliness, any innocence, any social inequality smell. The same that I have, my dear, the same that my plebeian feet have, you boarding-school girl, little angel, blue blood. Which means there is no difference between us at all, and you should not loathe me: I did kiss your ladylike feet, I gave up my soul for them, so now you bend down and kiss my foul little socks. “He was a titular counselor, she was a general’s daughter”. . . What should I do with you now, Psyche? Kill you? It doesn’t matter—why, being dead, you will still come to me. A lost man is walking around someone else’s town. Emptiness like a sea tide is slowly lashing at him. He is not resisting it. Leaving, he mumbles to himself: “Pushkin’s Russia, why did you trick us? Pushkin’s Russia, why did you betray us?” * * * Silence and night. Complete silence, absolute night. The thought that everything ends forever fills the man with quiet triumph. He has a foreboding, he knows for sure that this is not true. But while this second lasts, he does not want to resist it. Already not belonging to life, not yet picked up by emptiness, he allows himself to be lulled into sleep, as if by music or a sea surf, by vague melodious lies. Already not belonging to life, not yet picked up by emptiness . . . On the very edge. He is swinging on a cobweb. The whole weight of the world is hanging upon him but he knows [that] while this second still lasts, the cobweb will not break, it will endure everything. He looks at a point, an infinitely small point, but while this second lasts, the whole essence of life is concentrated there. The point, atom, million volts flying through it and completely, completely melting the nucleus of loneliness. . . . The spiral was thrown deep into eternity. Everything has flown along it: cigarette butts, sunsets, immortal verses, clipped fingernails, dirt from under these nails. Global ideas, blood shed for them, blood of murder and copulation, hemorrhoidal blood, blood from purulent sores. Bird cherry, stars, innocence, sewage pipes, cancer tumors, the Beatitudes, irony, Alpine snow. The minister who signed the Versailles Treaty has flown by, humming “Germany must pay”—ichor frozen on his sharp teeth, rat poison 108 georgii ivanov: the decay of the atom showing through his stomach. Chasing his overcoat, Akakii Akakievich just swept by, with his birdlike profile, in canvas underpants soiled by the semen of an onanist. All hopes, all convulsions, all pity, all pitilessness, all bodily moisture, all odorous crumb, all deaf and mute triumph . . . And thousands of other things. [Playing] tennis in a white shirt and swimming in the Crimea that a man being eaten alive by lice in Solovki is dreaming of. Varieties of lice: body, head and special ones, hypodermic, extermi- nated only by the Neapolitan unguent. The Neapolitan unguent, obesity pills, contraceptive balls, ice floating on the Neva, sunset on the Lido and all the descriptions of ice floatings and sunsets in the worthless books by the literary classics. In the incessant motley stream, the dark blue dress, the quarrel, the foggy winter day have flashed by. The spiral was thrown deep into eternity. Broken into pieces, contracting, vibrating, the melted global hideousness was rapidly spiraling away. There, on the very edge, near the purpose, everything was merging into one again. Through rotation, trembling and glitter, gradually clearing up, some features were showing up. The meaning of life? God? No, still the same: dear, heartless, lost forever, your face. If the little beasts could only know in what an important official letter I am using their Australian language, they would certainly be very proud. I would be long dead, and they would still be having fun, dancing and clapping their little hands. Lowly Distinguished Mister Commissar! Of my own free will, in a not quite sober mind but in clear, very clear memory I finish celebrating my name days. Being a part of global hideousness, I see no reason to blame it. I would also like to add, paraphrasing newlywed Tolstoy’s words: “It was so meaningless that it cannot end with death.” With astonishing, irresistible clarity I understand this now. But, switching to the Australian language again, “it doesn’t bite Your Excellent Sirloin.” Part three

Early Soviet Erotic Fiction

Panteleymon ROMANOV Without Bird Cherry

Romanov (1884–1938) is a largely forgotten early Soviet author who became exceptionally well-known in the mid-1920s thanks to publishing the satirical short story included here, Without Bird Cherry (1926). It stirred a heated discussion in Soviet literary circles; for the most part, the author was accused of vulgarity and “denigration” of young Komsomol members’ morality. It is valuable for the present anthology as an example of the rather acute interest in the sexual behavior of a homo sovieticus (to use a much later ironic term) reflected in the work of Romanov and his fellow writers, politicians and intel- lectuals such as Aleksandra Kollontai, Sergei Malashkin, Lev Gumilevsky, Veresaev and others. Apparently, Romanov was quite skeptical about the idea of dispensing with the old world’s concept of “bourgeois love” altogether and replacing it with some other form of relationships between a new man and woman (such as the then-popular idea of “free love”).1

I

Spring this year is so luxuriant, more than it has ever seemed to have been before. But I am so sad, darling Verusha. Sad, pained, as though I did just one thing in life completely wrong. In the window of my dorm room, in a bottle with a broken off neck, there is a small crumpled twig of bird cherry.2 I brought it in yesterday . . . And when I look at this bottle, for some reason I feel like crying. I will be courageous and will tell you everything. I recently met a comrade from another department. I am far from any sentimentality, as he likes to put it; far from regretting my lost innocence and even farther from feelings of remorse for my first “fall.” But there is something inside that is gnawing at me—obscurely, dimly and ceaselessly.

1 Russian original: Пантелеймон Романов. Без черемухи. Повесть, рассказы. Москва: Правда, 1990. 2 In Russian culture, blooming bird cherry, as well as blooming lilac, is associated with the long-awaited arrival of spring and romantic courtship. 112 part three

I will tell you later with all “shameless” sincerity the way it happened. But before I would like to ask you a few questions. When you first came together with Pavel, did not you want your first love to be a holiday and the days of this love would be different from other, usual days? And did not it come to your mind that on this first holiday of your spring it would be insulting to wear unpolished boots, in a dirty or torn blouse? I am asking this because all my coevals around me see this differently from me. And I do not have enough courage to think and act in the same way as I feel. As you know, always a great effort is required to oppose the conven- tional wisdoms accepted in the environment you live in. It is our custom to treat everything attractive, all kinds of tidiness and neatness both in clothing and in a room you live in, with some sort of sprightly disdain. In our dorms there are dirt, trash, disorder, and crumpled beds everywhere. On the windowsills there are cigarette butts; [there are] plywood partitions, on which torn to shreds posters and [Komsomol] meeting announcements are dangling. Not one of us even tries to decorate our lodging space. And as there is a rumor that we will be soon moved elsewhere, it only causes a more negligent attitude and even a deliberate despoiling of everything. Overall, it seems like we are ashamed of concerning ourselves with such trifles as a clean beautiful lodging and the fresh, healthy air in it. Not because we have serious business that does not leave us any free time, but because we have to despise everything related to caring about beauty. I do not know why we have to. This is especially odd as our authorities—the destitute, proletarian ones—spend a lot of energy and money to make everything beautiful: there are public gardens everywhere, flowerbeds also that did not use to exist under the regime of landowners and capitalists who would brag of their love of refined, beautiful life; all Moscow is shining with the cleanness of freshly plastered houses, and our university that used to look like a worn out police station for a hundred years under the old regime has now turned into the most beautiful building in Moscow. And we feel unwittingly proud that it is so beautiful. At the same time, in our inner life, inside these walls cleaned up by our authorities, there reign dirt and disorder. panteleymon romanov: without bird cherry 113

All girls and our comrades-men act as if they were afraid of being suspected of any refinement and good manners. They speak in a deliberately rude, unduly familiar tone, slapping one another on the back. And they choose the rudest possible words using all the street jargon, like the filthy expression “let there be.” The nastiest expletives have been given all the civil rights and prestige. And when our young women—not all of them, just some—rebel against it, it makes it only worse as they are now deliberately “taught the correct way” in their native language. Only the tone of rudeness and cynical familiarity with violation of all restrictive rules are praiseworthy. Maybe this is because we are a destitute lot and, we cannot afford dressing up well and so we put on airs to say that we do not give a damn about anything. And besides, we, as soldiers of revolution, have no time for sentimentality and endearments. But again, if we are soldiers of the revolution, we should have really followed the example of our authorities who aspire to the beauty of life not for the sake of beauty itself but for the sake of health and neatness. So it is high time we gave up this exaggeratedly elevated, barracks-like tone. But you know, the majority likes this tone. Our men notwithstanding, girls also like it as it gives them more freedom and does not require any self-control. And this neglect of all that is beautiful, neat and healthy leads to having the same boldness, rudeness, unceremoniousness, and fear of showing any human tenderness, responsiveness or cautious attitude to one’s girlfriend or to female friends. And this is all due to the fear of giving up the tone of unwritten morals of our environment. You have it all different in your conservatory. I sometimes feel sorry I transferred to the university. And I am often thinking that if my mother, a village midwife, now looking at me with pious timidity, only heard the way our people use the most obscene words and live in dirt, what would she think? We have no love, we only have sex relations because love has been contemptuously referred to the field of “psychology,” and the right to existence is enforced only for physiology. Girls easily come together with our comrades-men for a week, a month or casually for one night. Anyone who looks for something more than physiology in love relationships is treated mockingly, as they would treat wretched and mentally damaged persons. 114 part three

II

What is he like? An ordinary student, in a dark blue shirt with unbuttoned collar, in high boots. He always throws his hair casually back with his hand. He attracted me first with his eyes. When he was alone and walked around the corridor, one could feel great seriousness and composure about him. But whenever he found himself in the company of other young people, he became, as it seemed to me, exaggeratedly noisy, rude, and familiar. In front of girls he felt confident because he was attractive; and in front of his [male] comrades—because he was smart. And it was as though he was afraid to fail to live up to his status as a leader in their eyes. It was as if there were two persons in him: one very serious in his thought, internal firmness and the other some sort of a banal swagger, irritating in its theatrics; desire for expressing his contempt to what others hold in respect; constant wish to appear ruder than he actually was. Yesterday we went into the twilight together for the first time. There was an evening silence already falling over the town, when all sounds become softer, the air—cooler and from the town gardens it smells like a fresh spring odor of wet earth. “Let’s stop by my place, I don’t live far away,” he said. “No, I won’t go.” “Etiquette?” “Not at all. This is for starters. And secondly, I feel so good now outside.” He shrugged. We went out to the embankment and stood near the grid for a little while. A girl came up, selling bird cherry twigs; I bought one from her and was waiting for change for a long time. And he was standing and looking at me, squinting his eye a bit. “You cannot do without bird cherry?” “No, I could, but with bird cherry is better than without bird cherry.” “And I always do it without bird cherry, and it works out just fine every time,” he said and laughed somewhat unpleasantly. There were two girls standing in front of us. The students walking in a crowd grabbed and embraced them, and when they broke free, the students burst out laughing and went on, looking back at the girls and screaming something after them. panteleymon romanov: without bird cherry 115

“They ruined the girls’ mood,” my companion said. “They approached them without bird cherry, and they got scared.” “Why are you so appalled at bird cherry?” I asked. “You know, it all ends the same, with or without it . . . why bother then?” “You say so because you have never been in love.” “And what is it for?” “What do you have left in you of womanliness, then?” “First off, quit these Chinese ceremonies and call me ‘tu’ and secondly I do have something left in me of womanliness. And quite a bit actually.” “I won’t say ‘tu’ to you,” I said. “If you say ‘tu’ to everyone, then there won’t be anything pleasant about it.” We were walking behind lilac bushes. I stopped and began pinning the bird cherry twig to my blouse. He suddenly made a rapid movement, pulled back my head and tried to kiss me. I pushed him away. “If you don’t want to, that’s fine,” he said calmly. “No, I don’t. Once love doesn’t exist, you don’t really care what woman you kiss. If there were some other one in my place, you would want to kiss her as well.” “That’s absolutely correct,” he replied. “A woman also kisses not just one man. We recently had a little party, and a friend’s fiancée kissed me and him with the same pleasure. And if anyone else had turned up, she would have done it with him in the same way. And then they get married and register the marriage and other nonsense . . .” All my inner being was indignant as I listened to what he was saying. It appeared to me that he is not so impartial to me: I have met his gaze many times looking and finding me even in the dense crowd of the university young people. And then why would one ruin this extraordinary spring evening when one wants not rude and familiar words, but tender and calm ones. I hated him. But at this time we were walking by some lady who was sitting in the shade on a bench. She had crossed her legs in silk stockings and was watching intently everyone passing by. My companion looked at her for a long time. She also glanced at him. Then, having walked a certain distance, he looked back at her again. I felt a little sting. “Let’s sit down here,” he said approaching the next bench. I realized that he wanted to sit down so that he could look back at her. Suddenly I felt so unwell for some reason that I wanted to cry, do not know why. Not knowing what was happening to me, I said: 116 part three

“I don’t want to go with you . . . Bye now, I will go to the left.” He stopped, visibly puzzled. “Why is that? You don’t like the frankness of what I am saying? You think it’s better to color the truth and tell lies?” “Too bad you have nothing to say that would not need some coloring.” “What can I do,” he said, as though he had missed what I had just said. “Well, in this case, see you later. But it is really a pity,” he added, holding my hand in his, “that . . . Really a pity.” Having released my hand, he walked away toward his house, not looking back. I did not see this coming. I did not think he would leave. I stopped at the corner of the boulevard and looked around. It was one of those May nights when it seems like everything around you is living its inimitable life [. . .]. Everywhere, in the dark under trees and in a well-lit ground of a public garden near the cathedral there were groups of joyous youth and separate couples sitting on garden benches deep under the well-cut trees and lilac bushes. One could hear laughter, talking, see the flashing lights of cigarettes, and it seemed as though all these people were charged, filled to the brim with the exciting warmness of the night, and you just need to inhale its aroma in ecstasy, not losing even one minute. And when you have nothing to respond to this night, when there is emptiness and glum loneliness inside you, when everyone is together and you are sole, then nothing can feel worse and more melancholy. Just a few minutes earlier, his presence had not mattered to me. But from the moment I had seen him looking at that lady, I suddenly felt some sort of pain, anxiety, being on the verge of bursting into tears, losing all will, and needing nothing but him being with me. In short—and I hope you will not condemn me—it was unbearable for me to feel rejected, thrown out from the general choir amid this spring felicity of nature. Not being fully conscious of what I was doing, I turned around and quickly went in the direction of his house.

III

I was walking fast, thinking only of the fact that, if I were late, he would be gone and I would remain alone. And most importantly, that our date panteleymon romanov: without bird cherry 117 ended so abruptly and awkwardly, and I pushed away the man without making any effort to influence him in a positive way [. . .]. I entered the dark staircase of an old stone house that, after the very warm May night, breathed with the wintry cold of its unheated walls. It was the same staircase as so many others left in Moscow even now: front door dusty windows unwashed for many years, with leftovers of glued ads, dirty worn-out stairway with dust, cigarette butts, and penciled writings on the walls. He did not except to see me at all. And probably he was getting to ready to sit down and do work. By the door there was a narrow table nailed together from thin boards [. . .] There was a small electric lamp hanging on a nail from over the table. “Oh, you are a real hero!” he exclaimed. “Change your mind obviously? So much the better.” He came up to me and, laughing, took my hand. He may have wanted to kiss it or just caress it but he did not do either. “I am upset that we had this spat,” I said, “and I decided to make up for it.” “Well, there is not much to make up for. Hold on, let me put a note on the door as someone might come in.” Standing by the table he was writing a note; meanwhile, I looked around the room. It was very similar to the staircase: on the floor there were cigarette butts, paper scraps, traces of mud and dust brought from the yard on people’s boots; all the walls were covered by telephone numbers and penciled notes. There were crumpled, unmade beds near the walls, dirty plates, sunflower oil bottles, egg shell, and tin kettles on the window-sill. I felt uneasy and could not come up with anything I could tell him when he came back, but to say nothing seemed unfitting as it would have given a completely different meaning to my visit. And at this point I suddenly realized what he went out to put the note on the door for. What was so bad about someone stopping by, after all? I now understood what for. At this thought everything went dark before my eyes and I gasped for air. Tense and frightened, I came up to the window [. . .]. I felt really bad that the best moments of my life, my first happiness, maybe my first day of love took place amid these slimy walls and plates with yesterday’s leftover food. This is why, when he came back in, I began asking him to go outside. Nuisance and surprise flashed on his face. 118 part three

“What for? You just came from there.” And then he added in a changed, hasty voice: “I’ve arranged everything so that no one can come in. Don’t talk silly. I am not going to let you go anywhere.” “It’s unpleasant for me to be here.” “There we go, again the same,” he said, almost irritated. “Well, what’s the matter? Where are you going?” His voice was faltering, hasty, and his hands were trembling as he tried to hold me. My hands were shaking too, and my heart was pounding. It was as though I had two antagonistic moods: one was all about anxiety and fear that we were alone in the room and that no one was going to come in; the other was in being conscious that everything was not right: his thievishly hasty whisper, and greedy hurry, and the loss of usual defiant calmness and self-control. It was as though he was thinking about one thing: how to do it before his roommates came back. And even the slightest unyielding- ness on my part caused his impatient annoyance. We, women, even when we are in love, cannot treat that fact too straightforwardly. The fact always comes last for us, but what comes first is the attraction to a person, his intelligence, his talent, his soul, and his tenderness. We always want, at the beginning, not physical intimacy but some other sort of closeness. But when this does not happen, a woman does yield, succumbing to the intoxication of mere sensuality, when instead of completeness and happiness she feels abhorrence toward herself. This resembles a feeling of some sort of fall and acute antipathy to a man as an insensitive person who made you experience the unpleasant filthy feeling of something untidy, after which he himself becomes nasty as a participant of this untidy business, as a reason for it. Everything stood in my way: unmade beds, egg shells on the windowsills, the dirt, and his altered looks, as well as the distinct realization that this was all not going the way it should have. “I cannot stay here!” I said, almost in tears. “What is it that you want? Nice atmosphere? Not enough romance? I am not a baron of some kind, you know . . .” he replied with anger and irritation bursting through. Apparently, my face expression changed at his scream as he hurriedly, as if trying to make amends, added: “Well, calm down, would you, really . . . someone can come in soon.” I should have left resolutely at this point. But inside me, just as in him too, there was the nasty feeling of bare desire arising from the conscious- panteleymon romanov: without bird cherry 119 ness that we two were alone in the room. And, deceiving myself, I did not in fact leave, as if hoping that something could change . . . “Wait a minute, I will arrange some romance for you,” he said and turned off the lamp. True, it got better after that because now one could no longer see the beds, empty oil bottles, and cig butts on the floor. I approached the window, and with my heart beating heavily and not seeing anything in front of my eyes, stood there with my back to him. There was silence behind my back as though he did not know what to do. My heart was beating so hard that it echoed in my ears, and I waited for something with tension and anxiety. Finally he came up to me, embraced my neck with his arm and stopped, probably also looking out of the window. Without turning around I could see the direction of his stare. I was thankful to him for embracing me. I wanted to stand like this for a long time, feeling his arm on my neck. Meanwhile he began showing his impatience: “So, are you going to stand here like this?” he was saying apparently thinking that his roommates might come back as I am meaninglessly standing by the window. And he pulled me by the hand toward the bed. Scared, I moved away from him. “Let’s go there and sit down, come on!” I was still standing with my back to him and shaking my head at all his attempts to pull me away from the window. He stepped away from me. For some time we were silent. I was waiting anxiously for him to kiss me at the neck or shoulder. But he did not kiss me, and began pulling me away even more persistently and impatiently. “Well, what do you want?” I asked making a step in the direction of where he was pulling me. I did it unconsciously as though I hoped to distract his and my attention from the fact that I made this step toward where he wanted me to be. “Nothing, let’s just have a seat instead of standing here.” I stopped and silently watched his shining eyes and dry lips in the semidarkness of the empty room. Actually, I did not see much of the room, thanks to the darkness. I could imagine now that my first happiness attended me in the surroundings worthy of this happiness. But I did need human tenderness and human endearment. I need to cease feeling him as alien and start feeling like he was one of my own kind, close and intimate. Then everything would have become close and possible. 120 part three

I covered my face with my hands and stood for a while motionless. He appeared to be indecisive and then suddenly said: “What’s the point of just talking, only losing time . . .” I felt offended by these words and stepped away from him. But he resolutely and angrily caught my hand and said: “What is going on here, why the hell are we beating about the bush here!” And I felt that he quickly lifted me and put on the closest disarrayed bed. It seemed to me he could have put me not on his own bed but just on any of them. I began beating at him, trying to push his hands and get up but it was too late. When we got up from the bed, he, first of all, turned on the lamp. “No light!” I asked with pain and fear. He looked at me quizzically and shrugging his shoulders, turned it off. Then, not coming close to me, he began fixing the bed and said: “I should set Van’ka’s bed straight, or he will instantly understand what the matter is.” I silently moved aside and looked in the window, without thoughts and feelings. He was still messing with the bed, walking on all fours on the floor, apparently looking for something, not paying attention to me. Then he approached me. Against my will I sighed deeply; I turned my head to him [. . .] and stretched my arms out to him: “Here are your hairpins,” he said, putting them into my outstretched hand. “I was crawling in the darkness on the floor looking for them . . . Why couldn’t we switch the lights on . . . Okay, you got to go, or else my riffraff pals will come back. I will see you off through the back door. The front one is closed now.” I began putting on my jacket as he was standing beside me waiting for me to get dressed aiming to show me the way through the back door. We did not say a word to each other and for some reason avoided glancing at one another. When I went out to the street, for some time I just walked along, without a thought. Then I felt something metal in my hand and shivered with my entire body from flickering fright, horror and disgust, but instantly recalled that those were the hairpins he had put into my hand. I even looked at them. They were indeed the pins and nothing else. Holding them in the hand, I dragged myself home feeling sick and run down. There was still the crumpled, sagging bird cherry twig on my chest. panteleymon romanov: without bird cherry 121

The night over the sleeping city was the same as it had been two hours before. The moon with its light; as smoke, clouds were hanging over the stone bulk of the houses. The same foggy and hazy distance over the countless roofs of the city was also still there. And the same fragrance of blooming apple trees, bird cherry and grass was wafting toward me . . .

Vikentii VERESAEV Isanka

Fig. 7 Vikentii Veresaev

Veresaev (1867–1945), popular both in pre-revolutionary Tsarist and Soviet Russia, is mostly remembered today as a translator of Homer’s Iliad and The Odyssey into Russian but he was also a notable literary critic and novelist. The novella included here, Isanka (1927), is an example of his early Soviet period oeuvre, and attentive readers will perhaps notice some interesting differences and similarities between his approach to representing sex and eroticism with the other author of the same period included in this collection, Romanov.1

Part I

A thick and branchy linden was hanging down from a slope over a spring. The water in the spring was cold and transparent, dark in the shade. Youths and girls, laughing, filled up jugs with water. Falling water drops

1 The novella is translated here in a slightly abridged form. Russian original: Вересаев В. В. Собрание сочинений в 4-х т. Москва: Правда, 1985. Т. 3. 124 vikentii veresaev: isanka glowing in the sun, they put the jugs on their heads and went up the path in single file. They were all barefoot, all with heads uncovered. Their tanned legs and arms, slender young girl’s necks, young men’s still hairless chests were shining golden in the sun. Bor’ka Chertov, straight upright under the heavy jug on his head, stopped at the edge of the slope. He was smiling happily, breathing the wind and the sun and feasting his eyes on the straight, slender half-naked figures ascending from below amidst the fresh June greenery. Ah, that is so good! . . . Everyone can have a week in his life when it is as if everything around him were surrounding him with love and giving only joy, just joy, filling up his soul to the brim with joy. That was what Bor’ka was feeling now. The sun, the glowing of the greenery, the feeling of well- developed muscles under his tanned skin, the burning attention of girls’ eyes, nice friends, and a general recognition [of his talents]. Thickset Sten’ka Verkhotin and Tanya Komkova, also with jugs on their heads, passed by him below. In their eyes there was the same glow of unbridled joy that intoxicated Bor’ka. Sten’ka uttered, without turning his head: “Let’s have a contest. Running with full jugs. A new event for track and field matches.” Bor’ka was standing still in full concentration, his arms down, and slowly coiling his body trying to balance a large milk-can on his head without using his hands. More and more lads and girls were coming up from the meadow down below. Isanka’s laughter was heard from somewhere below him. Her slim strong figure appeared, with her naked golden-tanned arm supporting the jug on her head. She passed by. Bor’ka also moved slowly, balancing himself under the heavy can. And watching Isanka from behind. She walked along the road balancing the jug on her head—a magnifi- cent ancient statue of a blooming girl. Most girls had their wide trousers rolled up to their upper thighs. Isanka had a knee-length skirt. And it was striking to watch from behind how slender her ankles and lower parts of her shins were; there was something noble and powerful in them, like in the narrow shins of purebred racing horses. He recalled an expression from ancient Greek poets—“a maiden of fair ankle”—and it became instantly clear to him . . . That’s what it means! And he repeated to himself with a smile: vikentii veresaev: isanka 125

“A maiden of fair ankle. . .”2 The road turned off from the crossroads to the right, into the rye field. The jugs on the heads of the water carriers rocked over the opaque yellow- ness of the rye. Bor’ka was looking at the long procession and felt happy. It was his idea to carry jugs with water on his head. Last year Bor’ka had gone as a sailor on a Soviet ship to Palestine and Egypt. He was struck how slender Arabs were over there, especially women; in their slenderness they resembled date palms. He watched closely, thought hard about it—and discovered the reason. From wells and rivers these women carry water in jugs on their heads; and in general, they prefer to carry all heavy objects on their heads. Doing this, one’s back muscles are strained, the body must keep perfectly straight; after constant exercise the relevant muscles develop and get used to keeping the torso effortlessly in a straight upright position. Later, in Leningrad, Bor’ka took note of how willowy the posture of peddlers is—not only when they have their trays on their heads but even when they are just standing next to them. One can always tell one of them by how straight his posture is: and by its natural willowy character . . . One must teach the children from early on to carry certain weights on their heads. This way, they will become willowy. And that is important not only for the sake of good looks. To those doing intellectual work, it is necessary to keep their lungs uncompressed. Bor’ka was the one who first explained this. Sten’ka Verkhotin, an excellent organizer, instantly implemented it into reality. And now every day, at four o’clock, the dorm residents would gather at the gate to the mansion with their jugs and then go all the way to the Thunderstorm Springs, about a mile away, through a rye field. The Springs were famous all over for the cleanness and tastiness of their water. The recreation center’s maintenance director was pleased to give the lads the jugs and milk-cans . . . Walking next to Isanka was Mozhaev who looked frail and short next to her. There were also two girls in wide trousers rolled up to their crotches. And again Bor’ka noticed something he had observed a long time before: these female legs were bent inward, and as they walked, the knees knocked against each other. It did not look good at all; the fellows’ legs appeared much slenderer and their gait firmer and more harmonious.

2 In most common English translations of The Iliad by Homer, the translation is “beautiful” or “fair” ankle, as quoted here, but Veresaev, a translator of Homer himself, for some reason highlights their slenderness, or “narrowness.” 126 vikentii veresaev: isanka

Mozhaev moved over to those two girls. Bor’ka caught up with Isanka. “Tell me, Isanka, why do you not wear those wide trousers like the others do?” “Dunno, really. I like it this way.” Bor’ka was chuckling as he watched her tenderly. “You have this unconscious intuition that leads you in the right direction. Look at Zina and Vera: they have really crooked legs! Women have always felt that their legs are not set attractively and thus always and everywhere have covered them with skirts or long garments . . . When artists had to paint naked female bodies, they constantly faced female ugli- ness. And Tintoretto, for example, would simply straighten the legs of his female figures.” Mozhaev approached them, grinned and said, with a sigh: “You talk like a book!” And he began listening with interest. Bor’ka went on exultantly: “Hellenes . . . Ah, the Hellenes never falsified nature, they always knew how to find a point at which nature would be beautiful without any fal- sification. Look, for instance, at Venus of Milo or Venus of Knidos, they both have their lower body parts, down from the loins, covered and their legs are hidden.” As he was talking, Bor’ka took Isanka’s naked arm. A quiver rushed through her arm and she pulled it away. “What’s wrong?” he wondered. Isanka replied, embarrassed: “I don’t like it,” and then added with interest: “So, go on!” He kept silent, looking for a lost thought, and then continued: “The most common type of Venus is the type Venus pudica, Venus the Bashful. Such a Venus stands bending forward a little bit, one knee in front of the other—and the ultimate effect is very natural, with the inborn shortcoming unnoticeable.” Isanka listened with interest, supporting the jug on her head with her hand. It was always interesting to listen to Bor’ka. He really “talked like a book” in his wide-ranging erudition. It was particularly good that his knowledge was never passive but always swirling, boiling, different parts connecting and interacting, getting confirmed by observations, reconsti- tuting itself into something always new and interesting. And he always held forth with it all whenever he began speaking. The whole recreation center got infected with this tense intellectual life; he made everyone think more and be more curious. Now Bor’ka was all immersed in Hel- lenism, studied the Greek language, reading Homer already. There the vikentii veresaev: isanka 127 sun was everywhere, the heat, beautiful young bodies, continual physical exercises. And this all became brighter, deeper and more serious when lit by Bor’ka’s Hellenist projector. At the edge of the grove, beyond the road ditch, the water-carriers settled for some rest. The jugs and milk-cans filled to the brim with shining water were placed in a row along the ditch, and the lads laid themselves down under the birch-trees, merging into one huge, picturesque heap. Their golden, bronze and olive bodies were glowing in the green shade; bright-colored female headscarves and blouses made a colorful show. “Bor’ka! Isanka! Rest time!” Bor’ka lowered his can onto the ground, wiped his sweaty forehead and joyously mingled with the general mass of bodies. Legs intertwined with arms, and the girls, bending over to them, briefly revealed their pear-like breasts in the décolleté of their blouses. Sten’ka Verkhotin was lying with his head in Tanya’s lap, and she was caressing his curly hair. Isanka set her jug next to the others and sat down off to the side, not mixing in with the crowd. Mozhaev asked with animosity: “Why did you sit there on the side?” Isanka responded derisively: “Forgot to ask your opinion! It’s hot!” “No, it’s not your problem. You always keep off to the side. Look, Bor’ka just touched your hand, and you react in such a way: ‘Ah, oh, this is indecent!’ You are a philistine, one claiming refinement! You don’t have one bit of the simplicity of a true comrade!” Vera Gorbacheva supported Mozhaev: “It’s as though she were in the time of the ancient regime, in a court and its best drawing roo. . . . A Turgenev girl!” Bor’ka burst out laughing. “Comrades, what is this all about? Why don’t we introduce a set of rules how one should act and where to sit. To hell with it! Isanka, just be yourself, and don’t give a damn about them all!” Mozhaev grumbled: “So to hell with her, let her be herself! As if I gave a damn!” Sten’ka Verkhotin said lazily and strictly: “Mozhaev, quit fooling around! You have to be more cultured!” They got up, set the jugs on their heads and moved on. In time with their step they recited all together: Enough to live by the law, Given by Adam and Eve! 128 vikentii veresaev: isanka

We will run down the jade of history. . . Left! Left! Left! Mozhaev approached Isanka with a guilty look. “Don’t be angry with me. I pick on you, but I love you a lot anyway.” “Do I really need it?” She moved away from him and glanced at the approaching Bor’ka amicably: Bor’ka was used to being the best, and so he was accustomed to eagerly listening, loving maiden eyes. But Isanka became more and more desirable and lovely to him because she had proud and brave eyes and because she did not let anyone touch her. He sighed heavily. “Eh, Isanka! Tomorrow I am leaving—but I don’t want to leave at all! I have gotten so used to you!”[. . .] * * * Near the sports field, Zina Arnautova ran up to Bor’ka looking at him with loving eyes: “Bor’ka, we are going to play basketball now. Be our referee!” She was wearing a red t-shirt, with naked legs and arms, light, slim. Bor’ka slowly took her by the arms at the wrists and tried to force her to kneel. She wriggled, trying not to succumb, and laughed merrily. Previ- ously, before Isanka, Bor’ka used to go out with her often and speak with her, then he stopped, and now she was surreptitiously following him with sad eyes. At the moment Bor’ka felt easy and light-hearted, and he wanted to do something pleasant to anybody. He smiled tenderly trying to bend her arms. Then he said, as if he had lost all hope: “No, I can’t overcome you! Well, let’s go!” Two women’s basketball teams that had been playing well together for a month, five persons each. Tomorrow many of them were about to leave, and so today was the last game. Bor’ka had a whistle in his mouth, as he walked around the ground following the players intently. Ah, that was good! The ball was smoothly passed from one player to another, bounced off the ground, flew up again, and finally, rotating around its axis, flew in an arc toward the basket. The bodies were wriggling smoothly, nude arms were flickering graciously as though a real sea was undulating across this court. Isanka was a center forward and the captain of the skirt team: one team was in skirts and the other in wide trousers. The opposite team’s center was Zina. And they were both worthy of each other, like two embodied waves—light, mobile, vikentii veresaev: isanka 129 supple. Bor’ka feasted his eyes on both when he threw up the ball to start play, as they, standing next to each other with one hand behind the back, were getting ready to jump. It was captivating to see the congruence of the players, the beauty of strictly ordained movements, and graciousness of their bodies. But even more, Bor’ka admired the general discipline. Any word dropped by the referee was understood by the players to be an indisputable word of fate; Bor’ka, in fact, was a very strict referee, almost fault-finding; not a word was spoken by the players, only occasionally did they clap their hands asking for the ball; they did not touch one another, did not push anyone, did not hold the ball too long; each woman was running as though she were alone on this court, and the ball flew around incessantly, as if it were alive. This is real training in culture and discipline [. . .]. * * * The bell tolled for supper. Isanka went to have supper at her house. She did not live in the recreation center. Her uncle was an assistant maintenance director for the center, and she was staying at his house all summer. He lived in an outbuilding behind the pond. Bor’ka said: “I will see you off.” “But what about your supper?” “Um, I will be late. Or no supper. Doesn’t matter.” They went along the ash tree alley to the pond dam. Isanka said: “You know I already feel the effect of carrying those jugs on my back. It’s so easy and pleasant to walk with such straight posture, as though an outside force were supporting you.” “Really? You see?” Bor’ka began with enthusiasm. “This summer is really special for me. It’s as if I just opened my eyes about the human body, how beautiful it can be, how important it is that it be healthy and attractive and how little we think about it. And every day I have some ideas of genius about it. Today, for example . . . Tell me, do you enjoy looking in the mirror?” “In the mirror? How can I put it . . .?” “Well, sure, of course you don’t know how to put it. You are pretty so, naturally, you always look in the mirror, but how can you explain it! . . . But one should know this: a human must always look in the mirror. If he sees his body, he will want it to become more beautiful, muscled, and healthy. And the face one should also look at even more often, so that it remains light and without strain, with serene eyes, without those ugly wrinkles by the lips. The body impacts the soul in the same way as the soul does 130 vikentii veresaev: isanka the body. If you walk straight, your crumpled soul will straighten up; if you drive away the sullenness from your lips, it will go away from your soul too.” They turned near the dam to a little path, crossed through the gap in a brick wall overgrown with stinging nettle. “Well, I am not saying goodbye. After supper you will come to the palace, mind you. Will you come?” “Aha.” Isanka went toward the house and Bor’ka turned around [. . .]. * * * On their way back from the village, hand in hand, Sten’ka Verkhotin and Tanya were walking. What terrific fellows: here, on vacation, they do not stop doing social work. He was helping the villagers to set up a Komsomol unit, and she worked hard with the local Zhenotdel. And now they are walking back so nicely, hand in hand—what a great comradely couple! Bor’ka joined them. They walked together toward the palace. Bor’ka said: “Well, Sten’ka, Tan’ka! Maybe we won’t see each other again. You go to Moscow and I go to Leningrad . . . We lived a great month here, didn’t we?” Sten’ka was grinning broadly with his shaven face and its high cheekbones. “For sure. And you know what? You gave me so much in this month. At first I was annoyed by all your Hellene refinements, all that talk about the body, health and beauty. But then I realized that true physical culture calls for this sort of poeticizing and deep meditation, and that the Greeks were not fools about it really.” “My dear friendos, they were not fools at all!” Bor’ka hugged Sten’ka and Tanya, and they moved on toward the palace. * * * After supper in the white hall with its unpolished parquet the piano was playing, and people were dancing, reciting poems, and singing [. . .] Isanka and Bor’ka walked along the Oka River, the palace’s windows were alight above them, and up in the sky dense stars were astir [. . .]. Bor’ka watched the stars in the dark, recognizing their names by their location, as he pressed her palm and forearm with his finger. And being happy she did not pull out of his hand. They walked about the park for a long time. Isanka said: vikentii veresaev: isanka 131

“It’s time for me to go. I feel uncomfortable that everyone will go to bed and I will have to knock and wake them up.” He saw her off to their outbuilding. The windows were all dark. Isanka’s room window faced the garden and was open. “Um, goodbye then!” And she offered her hand to Bor’ka. He took it with his both hands and was looking at her, waiting. “Well . . . goodbye!” Isanka pulled herself up and hopped over the windowsill into the room. The light went on and lit the whole room from the inside. Bor’ka called her in a low voice from the lilac thicket: “Isanka, check this out: Jupiter just came up!” She leaned out. “Where’s that?” “It must be better seen from where you are. I will now show you.” He jumped on the windowsill and sat down: “No, now the corner of the storehouse is in the way . . . Move off to the right a bit. In the Aquarius constellation. You see it?” “Yeah, what a beauty!” They fell silent, enjoying the stars [. . .] “You know . . .” Isanka was looking at the star dreamily. “You know, last year I experienced a birth of live matter out of dead nature. It was so amazing! I was in the Crimea on an excursion. Once I strayed far away from the group, all alone, found a spot over the sea, between the rocks, got undressed and was lying in the sun. Grey rocks, dark-blue sky, the sea beating rhythmic, smooth blows . . . Gradually I ceased feeling myself as something discreet, it was strange for me to think that I just came here from somewhere. I seemed to have been lying here since time immemorial, just like these stones, listening to the smooth blows of the waves [. . .]. All of a sudden [her voice trembled anxiously] a seagull flew from under the rock. White, bright-colored, swift, with its own live flight, so different from the smooth motions of the waves. Something odd happened, I can’t really express it. Is it now? Millions of years ago? I suddenly felt that right behind that rock, this seagull had just been born out of all the death around us—out of the moisture of the sea, coastal silt, and sunshine. She was born alive, free, shed all her inertness and began flying the way she wanted to, where she wanted to, sideways, upward, downward, opposite the wind and the waves. It was as if millions of years of evolution had merged into one that moment. I got up, waved my arms—I also felt that I was not a stone or a wave but rather free like this seagull—with my own live flight, not bound by anything!. . . It was a great feeling, as if I had just been born into this world anew. 132 vikentii veresaev: isanka

Bor’ka exclaimed, in amazement: “Isanka! This is so interesting!” She wrinkled her nose and said: “Hush! They will hear you . . . And actually—bye!” “Listen, it looks like you didn’t disturb anyone when you came back, the window’s open: let’s go for another walk!” She responded hurriedly and abruptly: “No!” “Why not?” “Um . . . I don’t want to any more . . .” “Okay, bye then, I will be in Leningrad, and you—in Moscow. If I write to you, Isanka, will you respond?” “Surely, I will.” “And tomorrow, when the car is ready to go, will you come see us off?” “Of course I will!” Bor’ka looked her intently in the eye, sighed and said slowly: “Goodbye, then!” And jumped off the window into the bushes. * * * He went out to the park for a walk. Offence and love mixed in his soul, as it sang one word: “Isanka!” In the park it was really warm; it smelled of pine-tree. Everywhere from the benches men’s whispers and reserved girls’ laughter were heard. On a little bench over the river, Sten’ka Verkho- tin and Tan’ka were sitting, tightly squeezed against each other. He wanted to be alone. Bor’ka walked into the middle of the park where precipices over the Oka River began, overgrown with birch and oak. At the slope between oak bushes there was a little clearing [. . .] Bor’ka sat down. The silence was so amazing. He felt extraordinarily pure and light in his soul; and joy was filling it up to the brim. Bor’ka lay on his back, threw his hands behind his head and looked upward. The stars were quietly probing the dark blue darkness of the sky with their beams; the shining Jupiter was rising higher and higher; and sweet clover around him was breathing with its virgin-like, bashful odor. Bor’ka dozed off. When he awoke, it was dawn already [. . .]. He stood up and instantly felt it again in his soul acutely: “Isanka!” He went toward the greenhouses. Stealing through cautiously, not to be seen by the gardener, he cut a huge bouquet of roses in the rosarium. Black, crimson, pink, body-colored, white. Splashed with the dew. With a vikentii veresaev: isanka 133 chilly odor. Isanka’s window must have stayed open. He would throw the farewell bouquet into it. He climbed through the gap in the brick fence. There was something white in Isanka’s window in the distance. He looked intently, surprised, as he approached the house. Isanka was sitting by the window. Bor’ka whispered cautiously from the bushes: “Isanka!” She startled, suddenly stood tall and with her eyes wide open stretched out her hands forward. “Bor’ka!” He climbed the windowsill, having dropped the bouquet; they embraced each other tightly and their lips firmly pressed against each other. “I knew you would come! You had to come!” She tore her pale face away from his, looked deeply into his eyes. “But why did it take you so long?” “Yo . . . . have been waiting since then?” “Yes, sure!” He hugged her again, kissed her on the lips, cheeks, eyes, and thought with shame: “And I was asleep in that clearing! I am so dumb!” They got out of the window, went to the park and walked around all morning, holding hands, and talking, talking. He asked: “Why did you send me away so harshly?” “I . . . I don’t know. Something large was in my soul, frightening. It was necessary for me to stay alone.” “It’s good I didn’t take offence and came back now.” She thankfully squeezed his hand.

Part II

They exchanged letters throughout the winter. His letters were very intelligent and interesting, hers—somewhat drab when she tried to be smart and fascinating when she wrote about her emotions. Each letter connected them more and more, and by the spring, through the letters, they developed a great, faithful love for each other. He was slightly afraid of it, scared that it might bind him. But still he wrote: let’s get married! And he submitted a transfer request from Leningrad University to Moscow. In the summer he managed with great difficulties to get into the same recreation center near the Oka, next to which, at her uncle’s house, Isanka was again spending the summer. 134 vikentii veresaev: isanka

They saw each other very often. Took part in walks, games, physical exercises together, but it all was of secondary importance, as they counted the minutes before they could be alone. * * * In the evening they had tea on the small terrace of the outbuilding occupied by Isanka’s uncle, Nikolai Pavlovich. [. . .] Lidia Pavlovna, Isanka’s mother, was serving tea. She was a doctor’s widow and lived at her brother’s, helping him do the housework. Lean, with a refined face and slow movements. She followed Isanka with sadness: it made her shudder, and she could not get used to the fact that young people say ‘tu’ so easily to one another now and call each other by diminutives. She saw young girls dress scantily and how they went out with young men, embracing them. Her heart shivered and ached for Isanka, and thus there was always sadness and alarm in her eyes. And this summer the alarm only increased. Lidia Pavlovna saw that Isanka began to glow with internal light in the presence of this tall student and that the student came often to see them. What is it going to lead to? Isanka is just a third-year medical student, and he also is just a young student . . . And these days everything comes so easy for them! And she watched Tanya Komkova, Isanka’s friend, out of the corner of her eye: there were unattractive brown patches on her face, the breasts loosened up, her stomach protruding forward . . . How is she going to study now? Tanya’s glances were cheerful and joyous. This summer she stayed not in the center but in the village, running a reading hall for the peasants. She animatedly spoke about her work, about the female peasants’ organi- zation and the male ones’ anger at it. Lidia Pavlovna listened to her and kept thinking: this is all very good, but what is the child good for? Soon, as always, the conversation began to be led by Bor’ka. After tea Tanya got up. Bor’ka said: “It’s time to go for me too, I will go with you.” They left together. He saw her off to the edge of the village and slowly walked back [. . .]. * * * He sat down on a bench and kept whipping the top of his boot with a little willow whip. In his soul stirred an avid impatience. Yesterday, as he was kissing Isanka goodbye on the cheek, he hugged her and, as though unwittingly, touched her breast with his palm. And all day today, choking, vikentii veresaev: isanka 135 he kept recollecting that sensation. Secret longings and desires were stirring in his soul. Time and again the recollection came back and poured voluptuous heat over his heart. Twigs under rustled under someone’s feet in the semidarkness of the alley. With her light gait Isanka quickly approached him and said: “Did I keep you waiting today?” Bor’ka opened his embrace to her. They sat down next to each other and tightly pressed their bodies together. “Mama did not go to bed for a very long time tonight. Helped uncle work on his accounts. She would have noticed that I was leaving,” Isanka moved her shoulder. “It is so disgusting that we always hide, conceal it. Why not just do it openly?” “Openly what? You mean, sit down on your terrace like we are sitting now?” Isanka laughed and moved tighter to his side under his armpit. Bor’ka slowly kissed her soft hair. They fell silent. These days they were for the most part silent when alone together. They wanted some other communication, not verbal; they wanted to be closer to each other, cling together cheek to shoulder, lips to temple, and be silent, having given themselves to the heated currents running between their bodies. There was some special, wordless, ceaseless conversation of their glances—joyous, plucky, bashful—and of their touches and kisses. Their hands always talked by imperceptibly light trembling; there is no word that could render those subtle messages. Isanka said: “Take off your pince-nez, it’s in my way.” Bor’ka took it off. Isanka pressed her cheek against his. He slowly kissed her small soft palm. Through his t-shirt he felt that his chest was inno- cently pressed against a youthful girl’s breasts. He was particularly excited by the innocence of this touch—Isanka, apparently, had no idea how it affected him. And Bor’ka was afraid to move lest she would change her position [. . .]. Bor’ka embraced Isanka and began kissing her passionately and, as though by accident, found his hand on her breast. Isanka trembled and shyly moved his hand toward her waist. “But, Isanka, it’s so more convenient for me this way!” “Borechka . . . Please don’t!” She said it in such a plaintive, entreating voice that Bor’ka hand did move down. He frowned [. . .]. 136 vikentii veresaev: isanka

“Bor’ka, are you mad at me for something?” He was silent. “I am not mad . . . But isn’t that true that something unclear is going on between us. You pulled away from me as though a reptile had touched you. What for?” Isanka moved her shoulders drearily and lowered her head. “You cannot do it. I feel unpleasant.” “Listen, Isanka, this is ridiculous! You are not twelve. You agree to become my wife. If only our material situation were different, we would be married now. And, mind you, you are a medical student, and you certainly know, I hope . . . that love . . . that it is not just . . . kisses. What did you think? You will become my wife, and I still won’t be able to caress you where I want to . . . undress. . .” Isanka flinched and, her face creased with worry, bit her lip. He went on: “But to me, this is where the greatest meaning of true love is. Some- thing has happened, an insurmountable obstacle has fallen down—and everything previously thought of as shameless became allowed, natural, and desirable. And you know?. . .” His voice became tender, caressing. He pulled Isanka toward himself and firmly kissed her hair. She joyfully pressed herself against him. “You know? When we sit, as we are doing here and now, when I feel you snuggle up to me through my clothes, I feel how close you are, that you are mine. And when you suddenly recoil with disgust, when I feel that with my touch I am inflicting some sort of an insult upon you, then I feel really baffled: how can this be? Why is it that something giving me so much joy is only dirt and shame to her? May I have made a mistake? Maybe this is all simply a misunderstanding: you have mistaken your friendly interest in me, interest in my intellectual sensations for love. Oth- erwise how would this disgust be possible?” Isanka kept silent guiltily and did not know how to object. Overcoming herself, she snuggled up to Bor’ka even tighter and whispered: “How can you doubt that I am really in love with you?” He was kissing the back of her head, where tiny golden hairs curled, and whispered: “My darling, my good girl!” They fell silent again. And then again the mysterious wordless conversation began, with light handshakes, hair caresses, long kisses, and bodies pressed against each other. Time was passing oddly fast. It was as though the tiff had happened some time before, but the stars had moved on in the sky since then. Bor’ka sat Isanka into his lap, squeezed her tighter, and vikentii veresaev: isanka 137 the hot current between them became stronger. Slowly and unnoticeably, again as though unwittingly, he put a hand on her chest, touching it only slightly. He felt her tremble internally but did not remove the hand and only tighter pressed and said, with defiance: “I did not put my hand here unwittingly.” Isanka kept silent, having lowered her head and bit her lip in the dark, all cringing internally as though under torture. And he suddenly unbuttoned one button on her blouse and pulled another one –tearing it off— and quickly put his hand underneath it. Isanka writhed in his lap and tightly embraced his arm with both her hands. [. . .] Isanka was standing motionlessly. Bor’ka laughed mutedly and tried to embrace her. But she, with disgust, not concealing her disgust this time, moved her shoulders and said abruptly: “Time to go home.” He asked disappointedly: “Already?” Isanka shivered nervously. “Dirt! What dirt! . . . We shouldn’t be doing what we are doing!” Bor’ka bit his lip angrily but then took control of himself and answered timidly and sadly: “As you wish.” She kissed him weakly and went along the alley deep in thought. A candle was alight on the table. Isanka was sitting on the bed, biting her lip, and sewing on a new button to her blouse. Her tears were slowly falling down on her blue blouse. * * * Bor’ka with Isanka had mowed the lawn in front of Nikolai Pavlovich’s house . . . They felt good being together alone. On Petrov Day Nikolai and Lidia Pavlovna left for Kaluga for the birth- day of their elder brother, a financial inspector. It was hot in daytime, very nice, but toward night it grew dark in the east and [lightning] began to flash. Isanka was aroused: what if rain will dampen this green, dry hay. She and Bor’ka decided to work as long as needed to take it off to the terrace. . . In the twilight they filled the whole terrace with sweet-scented hay— the whole lawn fit in there. Then they stacked the hay remaining in the garden. After that they walked about the park for a long time, not being able to tell whether half an hour or three hours had elapsed [. . .]. 138 vikentii veresaev: isanka

Bor’ka lifted Isanka’s arm and kissed briefly her elbow area. She suddenly moved her shoulders and straightened up. “Boria, it’s time to go!” “Not now!” “No, Boria, most assuredly. It’s too late.” “Are you out of your mind? You always say it’s not nice that mother sees you come back late, but what’s wrong today? You have no one at home.” Isanka kept insisting: “No, no. Time to go.” Bor’ka suddenly agreed and did not object any longer. He said with a dubious smile: “Well, let’s go then.” They went along a forest path in the warm darkness, under the vaults of a hazel grove. It smelled like dry pine needles. Bor’ka was holding Isanka above the elbow and slightly squeezing her tight muscles, and from his fingers into Isanka’s body some languid, heated electricity was pouring. Her eyes were gleaming perplexedly and anxiously. They walked through the gap in the brick fence and approached the house. Isanka extended her hand: “Well, bye now!” Bor’ka was laughing in an undertone, watching her and not shaking her hand. Then he suddenly tightly embraced her and went with her up to the terrace. She thrashed about in his strong arms, catching at stairs but he pulled her upstairs. In a changed, a little choking voice, Bor’ka said: “Nobody’s home but us. Us alone.” He embraced her tightly and hotly whispered into her ear: “Just imagine, you don’t need to leave me to go anywhere, no one will be upset that you stay with me too late. No reason to be afraid that anyone will see us . . .” “Is it really going to happen some time?” “Let’s have a seat.” Isanka sat down on the hay; Bor’ka lay down next to her and pressed his cheek against her shoulder. “And you don’t have to say “don’t” and “you can’t” all the time. Every- thing is finally permitted; nothing is banned any more. . .” They became silent. And were silent for a while. Isanka several times tried to anxiously straighten up and break free from his arms but he embraced her tighter. She whispered, ashamed: “Boria, don’t!” “You see, you go ‘don’t’ again!” vikentii veresaev: isanka 139

Her arms were resisting with determination, but she did not have enough power to fight against Bor’ka’s powerful arms. And his caresses became ever bolder. Something unknown, sweet and sharp, was rising from inside of her. Anxiety and fear have filled her soul [. . .]. He seized her frantically by the shoulders, tossed her down into the hay and began kissing her neck, shoulders, and breasts. She did not resist, calmed down and was breathing heavily. A far lightning flashed from behind the pine forest and lit Isanka with flickering, sporadic lights. Bor’ka was struck with a new, unfamiliar beauty of her face. Her lips were closed resolutely; the huge eyes were gleaming with a concentrated light coming from inside. And Bor’ka also looked unfamiliar to Isanka: frightful, uncontrollably powerful and lovely in a new way. She felt like being submissive, obedient and giving him everything he wanted. There was no uneasiness, no shame. The souls were about to be swept by the roaring whirlwind, and everything was ready to get whirled into the insanity of passion and happiness. “Isanka, Isanka . . . Mine?” The sky flashed in a bright white and blue gleam. Even brighter was the girl’s nudity that flashed, burning his soul, from between her unbuttoned clothes. Just one more moment, and something enormous, unheard of, and striking would take place, after which they would ask in elation and astonishment: What was it? What happened just now? Bor’ka asked in hot whisper: “Aren’t you afraid that we will be carried away?” She replied cheerfully: “I like it, generally, when people are carried away.” “And . . . what if you get pregnant?” She wrinkled her face impatiently and hotly clung to him. But his arms suddenly weakened. With an enormous will effort he tore apart a fiery ring whirling around them—and sat down in the hay, crouching, and seized his knees with his arms. Isanka glanced at him in embarrassment and puzzlement. Sweaty and hot, with hay dust stuck to his body, Bor’ka stood up and staggeringly walked over to the handrail. The lightning was flashing in the south, thunder was heard grunting faintly. The leaves were quavering nervously. Isanka was lying in the hay motionlessly. Quivering inside, Bor’ka was staring into the distance with dim eyes, to which sobriety was coming slowly returning. The wind freshened his sweaty face. He stood there for a long time, then rubbed his forehead and 140 vikentii veresaev: isanka slowly paced back and forth near the spot where Isanka was lying. He was surprised that she was so quiet and immobile. He sat down next to her on the hay, took her flaccid hand, and kissed it slowly and firmly. He then scratched his head behind the ear and said, smiling: “Yeah . . . A little bit longer and . . .” [. . .]. * * * Bor’ka walked back along the Oka bank . . . He sat down over the precipice on the dry and gleaming grass. [. . .] His soul felt smoke-filled and dulled. He embraced his knees with his arms, pressed his face against the knees and wrinkled his face moaning drawlingly from shame. What dirt, it was so dirty! What shamelessness! But then he instantly recalled the way the sudden lightning had lit the half-naked Isanka. And frank, sucking, avid passion splashed in his soul like a tidal wave and washed away all his self-reproach: his soul began aching sweetly and compressed into one narrow, acute, dominant desire: to possess this girl’s body. If only this, the rest is nonsense [. . .]. Bor’ka stood up and said loudly: “What is this damned force all about? What a horror!” [. . .] * * * [The following morning] Bor’ka woke up very late, with a heavy head, gloomy. At eight the lads had tried to wake him up for a morning workout but he told them he was unwell. No one else was in the bedroom. He lay there for a long time, staring at the stucco ceiling decorations, as dim, scary thoughts passed through his mind. Some devil’s force has possessed his soul, entangled it, and dragged in its snare, and there was no power to resist it. “But this is just insanity! What did he transfer to Moscow for! What will happen? Will they move in together—he is a student, so is she . . . Pregnancy, kids. Absurd, absurd! . . . The ‘father of the family.’ And she, this young girl, the ‘mother’. . . And say goodbye to all the dreams about a professorship, about a glitter- ing academic career. Damn it, damn it! And if it did not happen yesterday, it will happen tomorrow. Now that the ball has tumbled over the barrier, it will roll downhill and no one will stop it. Ah, absurd!” He screwed up his face and gripped his head. “Away from this sorcery, I have to force my way out of this vicious circle before it is too late!” But suddenly he recalled again Isanka in the shine of the lightning and again his soul was stirred and started aching sweetly. He felt that whatever vikentii veresaev: isanka 141 lies ahead for him in future, it did not matter now. He would not be able to resolve any problems until Isanka was his. Even the most significant one: do they match one another; can they be husband and wife? Could such issues be possibly solved in that state of permanent intoxication that passion keeps them in? [. . .] * * * Bor’ka was on his way for a swim . . . Isanka, with a towel over her shoulder, was slowly walking up the slope . . . Bor’ka went toward her. Isanka’s complexion was gray; her face was miserable; there were black half-circles under her eyes. They shook their hands and began speaking about trifles. Bor’ka tried not to look into her eyes: they were so melancholy, so perplexed and puzzled, as though she had just learnt something horribly important, of which she had no idea before but would still be unable to comprehend. He walked alongside her up the hill. Isanka asked absently: “Are you going for a swim?” “Yeah . . . and you, going home?” She kept silent, lowering her head, and then said resolutely: “Let’s go for a little walk.” They went up the river along a towpath tread by barge-haulers and their horses. Isanka walked sullenly and was silent. And suddenly she seemed so unfamiliar to him; he noticed that she had a low forehead and that she stooped. And a frightful question flashed through his mind: “Who is she, after all? Why am I getting involved with her?” The question flashed and disappeared. Bor’ka . . . took Isanka’s hand and kissed it firmly. She shook his hand in response but the shake was deathly, no current ran in between them. Isanka said anxiously: “Let’s sit down somewhere.” [. . .] Bor’ka said endearingly: “Isanka, you always want to say something to me. Do tell me.” She was sitting with her elbows against her knees and head in her palms. Suddenly her shoulders began to quiver. She pressed her head, trying to contain herself but her sobs became more distinctly heard. “What’s wrong with you? My girl!” Isanka was quivering like a leaf under rain drops and then burst out crying. Bor’ka began anxiously caressing her fluffy golden hair, with tiny drops of rain all over them, and saying endearing words: 142 vikentii veresaev: isanka

“Boria! My dear!” Isanka seized his hand with both hands and pressed it against her chest. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I have been beside myself with anxiety since last night. I am so ashamed! I am not even sure of what. But I am ashamed . . . so ashamed!” Bor’ka was stunned. “Isanka, are you crazy? Ashamed in front of me? What can separate us now?” “I know that I should not be ashamed in front of you, that I am all yours. I now hold your hand and feel that it is mine, so close and dear . . . But tell me: what’s wrong with me? It is as though I was stained with dirt last night—what is it? My darling, my beloved!” Her eyes were shining; her melancholy, disconcerted face was alight from inside and became beautiful all of a sudden. She pressed his hand against her quivering chest in anguish as if she were trying to convince herself that this hand was indeed close and dear to her. Bor’ka kneeled in front of her on the hot and moist grass and began kissing her hand. Softly and confidently he said to her that all that she had experienced was quite natural. From childhood on we are brought up in the deepest contempt toward the body and love; therefore, our approach to it is always morbid and painful; two people have become so close in spirit, but any attempts at bodily intimacy will still cause them fear and shame. But how could this happen otherwise? One cannot circumvent it, since this is what love is about. And he talked more for a long time, holding her hand in his and caressing it. Isanka was sitting motionlessly staring at earth below with widely open eyes. Then she looked up at him. There was such a scream of horror in them that Bor’ka shivered internally and fell silent. “This all is such a nightmare, Borechka! Feel sorry for me, help me. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Yesterday when we parted . . . I don’t know how it happened to me . . .” She looked around with her insane eyes. “I was standing over the Oka River and looking down from the edge of a precipice. There are stones down there, so white and large . . . And I was drawn down there, and then this thought occurs to me: one step and all this nonsense is done with. I do not understand anything, Boria, but I am scared, so scared. And so ashamed!” Bor’ka just sat there with his head lowered. Then the sobs suddenly rushed up into his throat. He was silent trying to cope with them. Then, hiding his face, he pressed his lips against Isanka’s hand and said: vikentii veresaev: isanka 143

“Forgive me, if you can.” He got up and, staggering, with his shoulders quivering, went away.

Part III

It was hard to find decent lodging in Moscow. So they settled in like this: Isanka shared a room on Devichye Pole with Tanya Komkova, as they were both medical students. The large room was divided in half by a plank partition, and Sten’ka Verkhotin moved in with Tanya. His little box-room by the Arbatskie Vorota, about six square meters, which used to be a domestic’s room, went to Bor’ka. “Forgive me if you can. . .” To forgive was no big deal. Easier said than . . . But the ball has rolled over the barrier and now was rolling downhill unstoppably. No change in their relationship. * * * Once on a Saturday night Bor’ka stopped by to take Isanka for a walk and they wandered about the Devichye Pole for a long time. It was late fall, the rain was falling, and suddenly a frost kicked in, and the black, wet streets became white and resonant [. . .]. One could breathe deeply and cheerfully. They walked along alleys holding hands and spoke in warm, slow handshakes, while Bor’ka, as usual, animatedly spoke all the time. These were Isanka’s favorite moments of their communication now [. . .]. Then they went to a grocery store and bought some sausage and white bread and went to Isanka’s place to have tea. Her room was in the base- ment; the window was at ground level and faced the yard. The smell in the room was sour, damp and heavy, and it was impossible to get rid of it, as the garbage container was right outside the window. But the room itself was tidy and cozy as only a girl’s one could be . . . Isanka went to the kitchen to boil some water and came back with it, happy and glowing. They drank tea and chatted. They felt very close to one another; Isanka put her head on Bor’ka shoulder. Bor’ka’s eyes changed. He drew Isanka closer to himself and began unbuttoning the blouse on her chest. She tightly pressed his hand with her both hands and said tenderly: “Boria, please don’t.” “What is it again? Why don’t I?” 144 vikentii veresaev: isanka

And he seized her tightly. But she wriggled away, walked away to the wall and said in an apologizing voice: “It won’t happen again.” “Why?” “Bor’ka, it is filthy! I have no more strength for this.” “Odd, isn’t it! For four months you have been just fine, and now all of a sudden: no strength.” “It’s been difficult for all this time.” “Just difficult? No more than that?” “No, the most tormenting thing was this poisonous haze, it feels toxic and sweet, and then you are so sick afterwards!” “Aha!” Bor’ka proudly flashed his eyes and fell silent. Isanka said sadly: “Well, Boria, it was so good today between us and then suddenly. . .” “It’s a matter of taste.” He stood up and began putting his overcoat on. “You leaving?” “Yes, it is about time.” With a stone face he shook her hand. She overcame pride and asked: “When are you coming again?” He responded absently: “I really don’t know. I am very busy.” And he left. She clenched her teeth, walked about the room, and stopped by the window, and then she shook her head and sat down studying Kravkov’s pharmacology textbook [. . .]. As she was reading, tears kept falling down on the pages. Her head was aching, and she couldn’t memorize anything. She often had a headache now. Isanka ascribed it to the garbage dump by her window—it was impossible even to decide which is more useful: to air the room or not to air. Her nerves also became good for nothing: she always quivered and could not sleep well at night. She lost weight; under her eyes there were black half-circles. The sun’s summer shining, health and cheerful joy seemed so remote! She got undressed and went to bed. But the crying of the baby behind the partition did not let her sleep. Tanya was lulling it to sleep by pacing around the room. Finally it calmed down. But Sten’ka Verkhotin soon came back with two friends. They drank tea and fiercely argued about Trotskyism and opposition. Through the cracks vikentii veresaev: isanka 145 in the partition she could smell the dull stench of cheap tobacco. Some- times the baby would start crying, and Tanya’s voice would lull him back to sleep. The arguments went on until two in the morning [. . .]. Isanka tried to listen to Sten’ka’s good-natured voice and recalled Bor’ka’s stony face earlier that day. And an unkind feeling was stirring in her soul— toward those everlasting masters, men. At three, when the guys were already gone, Isanka overheard Tanya knocking on the table with her fist and crying hysterically: “Everything, everything is the same! Nothing has changed a bit! ‘Wifey’? Who cares what she thinks? ‘I don’t give a good goddamn!’ I don’t want to live with you, I am leaving and you do whatever you want with your child! I have my own job and it is not one bit less important than yours!” Sten’ka’s guilty, urging voice was then heard. At four Sten’ka would ask angrily: “What do you want me to do, breastfeed it? I have no milk in my breasts!” * * * A week had elapsed, then another one. Bor’ka never came back. Once in the evening Isanka was walking along the Nikitsky Boulevard and saw Bor’ka walking down a side alley with an unfamiliar girl; he was embracing her by the waist and animatedly speaking to her, and she was listening amorously. A matte face and large, beautiful black eyes. She had a constant headache. And her productivity went down. Dull sluggishness and awkwardness fogged her brain. Isanka went to see a neu- ropathology professor. She left him shaken. Sat on a bench at the Devi- chye Pole alley. He interrogated and explored her conscientiously and for a long time, carefully approaching the issue of relationships with men and asking: “Could you tell me everything about this issue?” Isanka blushed and lowered her head: “Yes.” And told him. Then he said: “So, this is what I will tell you. There is one reason that explains everything. You want to be healthy—either set up a normal relationship or break it up. And don’t postpone it. And tell him—is he a student?—tell him that this leads to deteriorated mental abilities, memory, and in general the consequences will be the nastiest.” Then he looked at her with intelligent, shrewd eyes, smiled softly and added: 146 vikentii veresaev: isanka

“You have pure, good eyes. And I will tell you this: do not yield to anyone’s sophisms and believe only your own feeling. The worst problem of a woman in this area is that she allows men to break and ruin their direct feeling with their logic. That’s it, comrade. Go and think hard about all of this.” [. . .] * * * And Bor’ka still never came. So what! Good enough! Everything will end its own way. But her soul was yearning and longing. At home things were not joyful. Isanka was preparing for exams with Tanya. She felt sorry for her. As Isanka was reading pharmacology, Tanya would listen dumbly, then unbutton her blouse, take her crying child, and adjust it to her large, soft, mother-like breasts. For some time they spoke about alkaloids, and then Tanya began hotly complaining about her life as her eyes were burning viciously. “Gosh, what happened to my life! The community service all went to hell and my research is also limping on both leg . . . . Diapers, baths, powders . . . But what can I do? I can’t deal with this baby anyhow.” Isanka began speaking with a malicious light in her eyes: “You have to insist that Sten’ka help you more.” “Sten’ka! . . . My Stepanushka . . .” Tanya laughed hatefully. “He comes in, wrinkles his nose and goes: ‘Well, the boy is still crying, not letting me work—I will go study at my classmate’s!’ And that’s it, I am alone again. And then I have to wash his clothes. . .” Isanka exclaimed vigorously: “I would never ever do it!” “I don’t want to do it either but I have to . . . He is a community service volunteer, an excellent worker. But you can’t imagine how dirty and uncultured he is. If you don’t mend his socks, he will wear them torn. Ah, those socks! Dirty, stinky! He will put one on the commode, the other on the windowsill, next to a plate with cottage cheese. His undershirts reek of sweat so badly that I cannot sleep with him . . . How can I not wash them for him?” Isanka paced the room indignantly. “You know, Tan’ka? I have to tell you: you are such a woman!” Tan’ka paused, sighed and smiled guiltily: “Yeah, Isanka, I am such a woman! But what should I do?” * * * vikentii veresaev: isanka 147

[. . .] After a Moscow Art Theater performance she and Tanya bumped into Bor’ka in the lobby. He was with the same Jewess, with large eyes looking at him amorously. And they instantly rushed toward each other—Isanka and Bor’ka. They shook hands hotly, began talking. And went back together. Isanka forgot about Tanya; Bor’ka—about his black-eyed one. They walked along the snowy Mokhovaya and talked like before. She did not even ask why he had never stopped by. He said it himself: he has felt he was not right but pride did not allow him to go see her [. . .]. Isanka told him about her visit to the professor. “I felt so lousy before too; I felt it but could not account for it. But now . . . Bor’ka, are we friends with you? Real ones?” He kissed her fluffy hair above the ear firmly, and she squeezed his hand. “Bor’ka, let’s quit it and be good comrades until we are able to become husband and wife.” He kept kissing her on the temple, giggled and said: “That’s so virtuous! Great, Isanka!” Then he grew serious and said: “No, but this is really is a disgrace! We are ruining our own and each other’s lives. And we have no will power to rise above all this. Fine. Let us help each other.” “So you won’t any longer take offence if I. . .” “Maybe I will. But call me a fool and a rascal then.” [. . .] * * * Bor’ka came back the next day. He was brilliant and spoke animatedly for a long time. In his soul he felt a sweet kiss from last night. They drank tea. Then Bor’ka moved closer to Isanka and embraced her at the waist. Isanka resolutely dodged it. “Boria! This won’t happen again. Never. Remember, we gave our words.” “Our words, so what!” He came up to her from behind and pressed his lips against her neck trying to cup her breasts with his hands. Isanka got up and moved to the wall. Bor’ka sat at the table and sadly put his hand over his head. “Eh . . . we really spoke nonsense yesterday. How is it even possible? Last night after we had parted, I always thought about you, recalled you kissing me. This feeling is above all oaths. I just can’t . . . this is like 148 vikentii veresaev: isanka an avalanche—it rolled over us and is carrying us with it. We become friends . . . This is a mockery! All my thoughts are about having you all. What a torture!” He gripped his head and bent over the table. Isanka came close to him, put her hand on his shoulder, and, biting her lip, looked into his eyes with a serious, intense stare. “Boria, well, then . . . let’s live like a husband and wife then.” He grinned. “Like Sten’ka Verkhotin and Tanya? Let me warn you: I am not going to cook pap and wash diapers. I must be free. Understand this, Isanka, I cannot burden myself with a family, I can’t restrict myself. I feel an extraordinary intellectual force inside me; I know that I will be a great man. And I can’t afford drowning myself in diapers and pap—no way!” “But I don’t want to drown in diapers and pap all alone. . .” Silence fell. Isanka continued looking into his eyes. “What should we do then?” “Well, let’s live in the real way . . . Only without consequences.” “You mean abortion, just in case, right?” “Yeah, what can you do!” She took her hand off his shoulder and shrugged with disgust: “No way! Kill my own child! And then, I see those girls all over. The way they have to deal with the consequences, go see doctors for months, their noses turn blue . . . You men don’t care about it.” Bor’ka said angrily: “Hell knows what is going on here! A touching scene from pre-revolutionary life: she is a celestially pure girl; he, for now, visits prostitutes and finally, in about seven or eight years, having half-cured his venereal diseases, he will take her in her overripe purity . . . You sound perfectly extinct . . . Who nowadays would feel so complicated about it?” Isanka burst out. “So go ahead and look for those modern girls, there are lots of them around. And you seem to have found one already anyway.” He replied simply and timidly: “It was only because of anguish. I love only you and no one else.” Isanka was touched by this. She bit her lip again and looked into his eyes with her loving, serious eyes and said: “So what should we do?” vikentii veresaev: isanka 149

They spoke fruitlessly for a long time. He timidly caressed her arm, then secretly moved forward; she felt sweet and disgusted. . . “No!” She hopped up and, fixing her dress, stepped aside to the wall resolutely [. . .]. Suddenly a squeaky, piercing, stupidly unnatural voice was heard: “Go-go-go-go-go-go-go!” Bor’ka hopped up. Isanka was laughing, holding a little toy devil made of pussy-willow. This morning she had passed through Smolenskii mar- ketplace and, feeling joyful because she had reconciled with Bor’ka, when saw a Chinaman selling these funny devils, she bought one. Bor’ka was slowly getting pale. “Did you save it on purpose, for this occasion?” The smile froze on Isanka’s bewildered face. “What do you mean, on purpose?” “I am not a young boy for you to make fun of me this way, with those hints broads always make. . .” “What hints? What are you talking about, Bor’ka?” [. . .] Looking at her viciously he said distinctly: “I am not going to change my last name, but will make my current one famous, the way it is.” “What does it have to do with your last name?” Then she suddenly realized: Bor’ka’s last name is Chertov, so he sees a hint at himself in the little devil.3 “What a fool you are!” [. . .] Boris walked around the room and began speaking calmly and indifferently: “Our relationship is over. Forever. I see now that my infatuation with you was a mistake. Just think: I left Leningrad because of you, my established contacts with professors! I find it necessary to warn you: don’t be surprised if I see you somewhere and do not say hello.” Isanka was leaning against the wall wearily, nodding weakly and saying: “Yeah . . . yeah. . .” He left then and waited secretly for Isanka to rush after him, call his name . . . She did not [. . .].

3 “Chyort” means “devil” in Russian. 150 vikentii veresaev: isanka

In Five Days

To Boris Vasilievich Chertov.

I was walking, it was last night, along Gogolevski Boulevard . . . It was sleeting, and it was very cold. I was tired and sat down near the Gogol monument. I recalled the woods near Oka River, joyful, tanned faces with healthy gleams in our eyes; everyone had a jug on their heads, in order to learn to hold oneself upright. Ha-ha-ha! How important it is, to hold oneself upright . . . You probably know that men usually approach lonely women sitting all by themselves. So he looked at my face attentively and sat down next to me. He was cautious and hesitated as perhaps he was thinking that he would have to pay too much, I don’t know . . . I was nervous, my voice was shaky but I really wanted to see if he was handsome and if he had enough persistence needed in such matters. I studied him. He was very well-dressed, with a little beer belly, but still handsome, especially his black eyes. We spoke a lot about various things; he warmed my hands in his, looking into my eyes tenderly. We walked around the city a lot, finally he took me to Merzlyakov Lane. He asked if I would agree to go upstairs with him and have a cup of tea. It was interesting for me to see what would happen next. What wealth some people can live in! He treated me to fruit, liqueurs—everything was delicious. Then he sat down next to me and was very persistent. I didn’t really care. He was really surprised: “Are you a virgin?” I laughed: “Me, a virgin? It just seems that way!” When I left, he slipped something into my hand. In the street I looked at it under a street- lamp: it was ten rubles. My word! That will help. I need money. This is all. I do not have any repentance or pity toward you in my soul. Everything is fine. And I have no anger toward you (you told me once that the best indication of indifference is when you are not angry). The main thing is that I no longer have this tormenting craving for you, this dependency no one needs. This is my last letter, of course. Isanka. Boris wanted to go make peace with Isanka on Sunday. But in the morning he received this letter. He read it three times, felt acute pain. Having torn it into pieces, he threw them out the window. He never went to see Isanka again. vikentii veresaev: isanka 151

* * * Once at Christmastide Bor’ka was hanging around with three girls on Nikitski Boulevard. They were returning from a dispute on the problem of sex at the Polytechnic Museum. The moon was shining festively, it was a quiet frosty night; thick hoarfrost was hanging over trees, telephone wires and antennas. Bor’ka talked animatedly, the girls listened amorously. One of them was that black-eyed girl . . . Bor’ka was saying that marriage as a friendly, comradely union between man and woman could be contracted only two or three years after physical intimacy. Before that moment, there is only infatuation, there is passion, and at this time man is totally blind and has to be ready for all sorts of surprises. Therefore, “trial marriages” common with some peoples have got the deepest meaning. They said goodbye. The girls went toward Kudrinskaya Square; Bor’ka moved along to the Arbatskie Vorota . . . Sitting on a bench with a book under her arm there was Isanka who was looking at him. He winced and wanted to pass by but then thought: “Not magnanimous!” He came up to her in a friendly way and stretched his hand. Isanka studied him with mischief and unwillingly shook his hand. And she asked: “So, boa, how many more chickens have you swallowed? How many more women have you powered past?” Bor’ka said softly: “Why do you say that, Isanka?” He sat down and studied her under the moonlight. She had gotten much leaner; her nose had become pointier, the eyes sunken and seemingly even deeper and more beautiful. All of a sudden Bor’ka felt that she was still dear to him, and his heart shrank from feeling the pain for her soiling herself in such a bitter way. She smelled of cheap tobacco. Before, Isanka had not smoked. “Why are you saying this, Isanka?” “I am celebrating my liberation from you. Feels so good! Two months have passed already, and I am still enjoying this feeling. I decided to live differently now. Before I let others kiss me, but now I kiss them myself— this is much more fun. Before I would say: “Come to me,” and then cried when they didn’t. Now, I say: “I will come see you whenever I want!” I used to suffer a lot but now let them suffer.” Boris said cordially and sadly: “I suffer a lot.” 152 vikentii veresaev: isanka

“Really? Well, this is very nice,” she lit a cigarette. “Too bad it is not reflected on your face at all.” Bor’ka tenderly put his hand on Isanka’s cold one and said endearingly: “Isanka! What you wrote to me then—about what happened near the Gogol monument—I will overlook it. I realize that you did it because of despair, and I may have been at fault for that.” “You over—look it? Ha-ha-ha!” She jumped up from the bench and stared at him indignantly. “You will overlook it! I waited for you so des- perately after that letter! Gosh, how I waited! I was waiting for you to come as a good comrade, as a friend, to seize me by the hands and ask: ‘Isanka, Isanka, how could this happen?’ What a fool I was!. . . And you were so proud of your virtuousness, you probably just burnt my letter in the stove . . . Bor’ka!” She moved closer to him, her hands in the pockets of her worn-out short overcoat: “Are you so mean and stupid that you actually believed in what I had written? I only wanted to break up with you.” He jumped up and caught her hand. “Really?” Isanka did not withdraw her hand for a swift moment but then freed it from his. “Yes, for real, so what next?” “Isanka, what is this tone about? I don’t recognize you at all.” “What next?” “You know, this totally changes the matter, what you just told me.” “Ha-ha! Sure enough, it does change it! Why do not we make peace now, right? And again you will keep degrading me, and telling me that you won’t become a great man because of me.” Bor’ka was silent, embarrassed. Isanka’s chest started shivering spasmodically. They heard a street-car roaring and ringing at a distance . . . Isanka stood up quickly. “Number fifteen! The last one for today. Or I will have to walk all the way to Devichye Pole . . . So long!” And she ran away to the tram-stop, the frosty snow crunching under her feet. RECOMMENDED FURTHER READING

Representations of sexuality and eroticism in all the included authors save Romanov and Veresaev are discussed in some detail in the following book by the translator/editor of this volume: Lalo, Alexei. Libertinage in Russian Culture and Literature: A Bio-History of Sexualities at the Threshold of Modernity. Leiden, Holland: Brill, 2011.

The following sources touch upon literary/political/cultural/medical discourses of sex and the body in Russian culture and literature of the period: Barta, Peter, editor. Gender and Sexuality in Russian Civilization. New York: Routledge, 2001. Carleton, Gregory. Sexual Revolution in Bolshevik Russia. Pittsburgh: The University of Pitts- burgh Press, 2005. Costlow, Jane et al., editors. Sexuality and the Body in Russian Culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993. Engelstein, Laura. The Keys to Happiness: Sex and the Search for Modernity in the Fin-de- Siecle Russia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992. Gasparov, Boris, R. Hughes & I. Paperno, editors. Cultural Mythologies of Russian Mod- ernism: From the Golden Age to the Silver Age. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Goldman, Wendy Z. Women, the State, and Revolution: Soviet Family Policy and Social Life, 1917–1936. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Healey, Dan. “Masculine Purity and ‘Gentleman’s Mischief’: Sexual Exchange and Prostitu- tion between Russian Men, 1861–1941,” Slavic Review, 60.2, 2001: 233–265. Kon, Igor. The Sexual Revolution in Russia: From the Age of the Czars to Today. Translated by James Riordan. New York: The Free Press, 1995. Kon, Igor & J. Riordan, editors. Sex and Russian Society. London: Pluto Press, 1993. LeBlanc, Ronald. Slavic Sins of the Flesh: Food, Sex, and Carnal Appetite in Nineteenth- Century Russian Fiction. Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2009. Levitt, Marcus and A. Toporkov, editors. Eros and Pornography in Russian Culture. Москва: Ладомир, 1999. Matich, Olga. Erotic Utopia: The Decadent Imagination in Russia’s Fin de Siecle. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2005. Naiman, Eric. Sex in Public: The Incarnation of Early Soviet Ideology. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997. Paperno, Irina & J.D. Grossman, editors. Creating Life: The Aesthetic Utopia of Russian Mod- ernism. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994. Radzinsky, Edvard. The Rasputin File. New York: Doubleday, 2000.

Further reading on particular authors and English translations of some of the key works of the period: Andreyev, Leonid. Visions: Stories and Photographs by Leonid Andreyev. Ed. by Olga Andreyev Carlisle. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987. Artsybashev, Mikhail. Sanin: A Novel. Translated by Michael Katz. Introduction by Otto Boele. Afterword by Nicholas Luker. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001. Boele, Otto. Erotic Nihilism in Late Imperial Russia: The Case of Mikhail Artsybashev’s Sanin. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2009. 154 recommended further reading

Bunin, Ivan. Dark Avenues. Translated by Hugh Alpin. Richmond, UK: Oneworld Modern Classics, 2008. Connolly, Julian. Ivan Bunin. Boston: Twayne, 1982. Kuprin, Alexandre. Sulamith: A Prose Poem of Antiquity. Translated from the Russian by B. Guilbert Guerney. New York: Nicholas L. Brown, 1923. ——. Yama [The Pit]: A Novel in Three Parts. Translated from the Russian by B. Guilbert Guerney. New York: Privately Printed, 1927. Lalo, Alexei. “Exploring the Impetus of Russia’s Silver Age: Representations of Sexuality and Eroticism in Aleksandr Kuprin, Ivan Bunin and Georgii Ivanov.” Toronto Slavic Quarterly 31 (Spring 2010). http://www.utoronto.ca/tsq/31/lalo31.shtml. ——. “Precursors of Lolita: The Adolescent and his/her Sexualized Body in Russian Erotic Writing of the Silver Age and in Emigration.” Toronto Slavic Quarterly 38 (Fall 2011) http://www.utoronto.ca/tsq/38/tsq38_lalo.pdf. LeBlanc, Ronald. “Artsybashev’s Sanin as a Response to Tolstoy and Tolstoyism.” Tolstoy Studies Journal, 18 (2006). 16–32. Luker, Nicholas. Alexander Kuprin. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1978. Malmstad, John & Nikolay Bogomolov. Mikhail Kuzmin: A Life in Art. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999. Markov, Vladimir. “Georgy Ivanov: Nihilist as Light-Bearer.” Simon Karlinsky and Alfred Appel, Jr., eds. The Bitter Air of Exile: Russian Writers in the West 1922–1972. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977. 139–163. Marullo, Thomas Gaiton. If You See the Buddha: Studies in the Fiction of Ivan Bunin. Evan- ston: Northwestern University Press, 1998. Mondry, Henrietta. Vasily Rozanov and the Body of Russian Literature. Bloomington: Slav- ica, Indiana University, 2010. Nabokov, Vladimir. The Enchanter. Translated by Dmitri Nabokov. New York: Putnam, 1986. Nagrodskaia, Evdokia. The Wrath of Dionysus. Translated by Louise McReynolds. Bloom- ington: Indiana University Press, 1997. Rozanov, Vasilii. The Apocalypse of our Time and Other Writings. Edited by Robert Payne. Translated by Robert Payne and Nikita Romanoff. New York: Praeger, 1977. Sologub, Fyodor. The Petty Demon. Translated by S.D. Cioran. Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1983. Woodward, James. Ivan Bunin: A Study of His Fiction. Chapel Hill: University of North Caro- lina Press, 1980. ——. Leonid Andreyev: A Study. Oxford: Clarendon P., 1969. Zholkovsky, Alexander. Text Counter Text: Rereadings in Russian Literary History. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994.