And Other Stories Of Communist Russia

by Zoshchenko,Mikhail.

  But normally—he's a poet. Has a world outlook. A passionate absent-minded nature. Writes verses. A lover of flowers and good food. And every kind of beauty is accessible to him. And he understands psychology. Knows women. And believes in their mission.

  He met her on a southern seacoast, where he arrived in the month of September while he was on vacation. And she also arrived there in September on her vacation.

  And there they had the unexpected fortune of meeting each other. They got acquainted there. And a passion for her arose in him. And she too was exceptionally attracted to him.

  And they spent the whole month there as though in a fog.

  On the one hand—the sea, nature, a careless life with all their needs provided; on the other hand—an understanding that could dispense with words: poetry, shared experiences, beauty.

  That is, the days flashed by as in a dream, one better than the other.

  But then time struck the hour of their separation. The time of departure approached.

  She returned home to Leningrad and commenced the completion of her course in some unusual sciences they were teaching there. And he arrived home in Rostov or somewhere around there. And he continued writing his poetry.

  But he could not continue writing there, since he remembered her person. He languished for her. And, being a lyricist, grew melancholy.

  And so, having sat out a couple of weeks in his own southern city, he suddenly made a decision on the spur of the moment, and, saying nothing to anyone, pulled out in the direction of his miss in faraway Leningrad.

  It was only at the last moment that he said to his wife: "I've fallen in love with someone else. We're going to separate. I'll send you money by mail."

  And with these words he was off to Leningrad. With the greater speed since she had urged him to come. She had said to him: "Come as quickly as you can. I am living here entirely alone. All by myself. I am finishing a course in science. I am dependent on no one. And here we will be able to continue our passion for each other."

  And now, recalling these tender words so full of profound significance, our poet hastened feverishly with increasing speed to meet her. And he was even surprised that he hadn't thought of going to her at once, since he had such splendid promptings.

  Briefly speaking, he arrived at her place and soon held her in his embraces.

  And they were both so happy that it is impossible to describe.

  She asked him: "Is it for long?" And he answered her poetically: "Forever!"

  But he could not stay long, inasmuch as she did not live alone in the dormitory.

  Not without a certain disturbed feeling, he suddenly noticed four beds in her cozy room, at the sight of which his heart almost burst asunder in his breast.

  She said: "I live here with three friends who are taking courses with me."

  He said: "I can see that, and I'm a bit puzzled. You told me you were living alone, as a result of which I was so bold as to come. Seems you were bragging a bit."

  She said: "I told you—'I live alone'—not in the sense of a room, but in the sense of emotion and marriage."

  He said: "Ah, that's it. In that case it's a misunderstanding."

  After which they embraced once again and were for a long time lost in admiration of one another.

  He said: "Well, never mind. I'll live in a hotel for awhile. And there we'll see. Maybe you'll finish your education, or maybe I will write some valuable poems."

  And she said: "That would be just fine."

  He moved over to the Hermes Hotel and began to live with her there.

  But he had already spent all his money and was really at a loss as to what he would do from then on. Moreover, to his misfortune, her birthday was only two days away at the time of his arrival. That is, one day she was to have a birthday. And our poet, not knowing much of life, was already quite sufficiently upset. But suddenly, on the second day after his arrival, providing no intermission, her birthday struck. And our poet was quite at the end of his wits because of the expenses this involved. On the first day he had bought her a sweet bun and had thought: it's only proper. But having learned of her birthday, he lost his head and bought her some beads. Imagine his surprise when she, having just been presented with the beads, said to top it off: 'Today, on the occasion of my birthday and dressed in these beads, I'd very much enjoy going with you to some sort of restaurant."

  And to this she added something about the poet Blok who in his time also enjoyed hanging out at restaurants and ca]is for no particular reason.

  And although he answered her evasively, "Well, Blok . . . ," nevertheless that evening he found himself accompanying her to a restaurant, where his sufferings reached their greatest intensity because of the dimension of the prices, of which in Rostov he had merely heard rumors,

  No, he was not miserly, our poet, but he had been, so to speak, entirely cleaned out. Furthermore, being petit bourgeois at the core, he could not bring himself to tell her of his extreme position. Although he did remark that he was uneasy in hotels. But she, thinking he spoke of his nervous sensitivity, said: "One must take oneself in hand."

  He did try to take himself in hand. And on her birthday he had tried to straddle his poetic muse so that he might dash off a few

  small poems with the objective, so to speak, of selling them to some journal or other.

  But it didn't work. For a long time the muse wouldn't give, and when she gave, the poet was simply surprised at what he received from her. In any case, when he read the opus it became abundantly clear to him that there could be no question of an honorarium. What he got was truly unique, and the poet ascribed this in part to his haste and perturbation of spirit.

  Then our young poet, after having reflected on the vicissitudes of fortune and on the fact that poetry was essentially a dark, dark business which in no way helped one to lead an easy life, went down to the free market and sold his overcoat.

  And, lightly dressed, he accompanied his girl where she wanted to go.

  After this, he counted on being able to live through a couple of days easily, and he tried not to think about anything and to enjoy himself fully, skimming the cream off a brilliant evening in the restaurant. And only after that, he decided, would he ponder his situation. And somehow get out of it. If worst came to worst, he thought of borrowing a certain amount from his miss.

  But on the day after her birthday an early frost suddenly struck in Leningrad. And our poet, dressed in his light jacket, began to hop about on the street, saying that he had managed to temper himself at home in the south and that was why he walked around like that with almost nothing on.

  In the course of things, he caught cold. And took to bed in his hotel, the Hermes. But there they expressed surprise at his impudence and said that he should pay for his room first and then he could get sick.

  Nevertheless, seeing as he was a poet, they dealt with him humanely in the long run, and said they wouldn't touch him until he recovered. After words like that the poet quite weakened physically and for six days he did not rise from his bed, fearing all the while that they would charge even a recumbent occupant the same rate for the room.

  His girl used to visit him and brought him something to eat, but what was to become of him was beyond comprehension. And perhaps he would not even recover.

  The poet had thought that after he got better he might once again assault his muse with cannon fire. But she quite refused to let him compose anything sensible. And the poet lost heart to

  such an extent that he promised himself that in the event he managed to escape in one piece from the predicament he had created, he would straightaway find a job so that he would never in the future have to depend on pure art.

  True, after the hotel manager had been visiting him in his room, the poet tried yet a third time to reach his inspiration, but except for three lines he could not squeeze anything out:

  At which time I gaze into the sky And I hear there chirring of propellers And someone floats down in ...
r />   But then the words "in a parachute" could not be forced into the measure of the line. And he could not bring himself to say "with parachute," since he didn't know aeronautical terminology. After this, the poet decisively succumbed to spleen and abandoned arms.

  His dreams of borrowing something from his sweetheart also turned out to have been unrealistic. To his surprise, at the very moment he had decided to tell her about all this, she herself said something to him about it, but only on her own account and not on his. So that the poet, weakened as he was from his illness, did not at the moment even grasp the full asperity of his situation. She said there was still about a week to go before she received her allowance, and if he could swing it, he should lend her something, especially since she had bought his food while he was ill.

  He said: "Certainly."

  And after she left, he decided to liquidate his covert-cloth suit.

  He sold the suit at the market, settled his affairs in part, and, dressed in shorts and a sweat shirt, he suddenly appeared one fine day at our office in the Leningrad Literary Fund, where he told us this tale of his.

  And for this story we gave him a hundred rubles to buy a ticket to get back to his home town.

  And he said to us: "This sum is enough for me to get home on. But I would like to stay here another week yet. I'd very much like to do that,"

  But we said to him: "You go now. And best of all settle yourself down to a job. And along with that, write some good poems sometimes. That would be the right way out for you."

  He said: "Why, that's just what I'll do, if you like. And I agree

  that young authors, besides their poetry, should have something else to do for a livelihood. And that's what's being done. And it's right that there should be a campaign to promote this."

  And after having thanked us, he withdrew. And we at the Literary Fund thought in the words of the poet:

  O, how divine is the union, In which one has been born for the other. But people born for each other, Alas, join in a union quite rarely.

  On this note our tale of the beginning poet comes to a close, and another, even more unusual tale is about to begin.

  POOR LIZA

  A certain by no means bad-looking young person, a well-developed brunette, decided during the course of this year that she must without fail get rich.

  That is, not that she wanted to acquire those fabled riches that once used to accumulate among millionaires and speculators in the lands of capital.

  No, naturally, that wasn't what she wanted. That is, generally speaking, she had once wanted exactly that. Only she hadn't been able to grasp how to bring it off. And so, she decided to confine herself to the realm of the possible.

  She wanted to have some kind of blue Ford car with, you know, a steady chauffeur. With a standard little dacha. A bank account. And naturally, a notable position for her husband so she could travel in the best circles and se.e everyone.

  But her husband was an ordinary engineer. That is, he was a hydrologist. They have something to do with water. That being the case, he, naturally, was not going about projecting special kinds of pillars for which he might be rewarded with money and premiums as the creator of new ideas and perspectives.

  Speaking briefly, he lived modestly on his seven hundred. And, being enthusiastic about his work, he was to a certain degree fully satisfied.

  This sum did not satisfy his wife. And being an idle and empty woman, with a weakly developed world outlook, she dreamed of fabulous luxury and so forth.

  And someone told her that in general, as things went, writers lived not at all badly. That some of them have typewriters, separate apartments, dachas, and sometimes, why, even automobiles. And let her search something out for herself among this layer of the population.

  But Liza did not know where to look. And for this reason she latched onto the first author who came her way, not without a certain haste.

  Just between us, though, this engineer of human souls, as luck

  would have it, seemed on occasion an insubstantial fellow. And to top it all off, he was addicted to alcohol. Thanks to which he expressed the wish, after a month was out, that she find a job somewhere. Inasmuch as he had little hope for her from himself, creating, as he did, weak books of little artistic worth which did not reflect in full measure the greatness of the epoch.

  In general, he did not justify her hopes, and so she left this degenerate of hers, having lost in the process her faith in literature and in her own powers.

  In any event, she returned to her husband. But although she returned, she had not lost her passionate hopes and only waited for something to happen to her as soon as possible.

  And, lo and behold, at this point she made the acquaintance of a certain foreigner.

  He was introduced to her in a restaurant. And she was told he was a tourist. And that he was living in a hotel, but that, not satisfied with this arrangement, he hoped to find a room in a private home for about two months. Did she by chance have one?

  And although she had no such thing, nevertheless she rejoiced exceedingly and decided to send her saintly mother off somewhere for two months, if only that she might not miss this spoiled foreigner who could not live in noisy, uncomfortable hotels amidst ringing of bells and intrusive chambermaids.

  Broadly speaking, she arranged a room for this tourist, this delicate aristocrat, in her apartment. And although her husband would not permit it, she stood her ground. And he moved over to their place, with his dazzling wardrobe, Eau de Cologne, photo apparatus, clothes hangers, and so forth.

  And so Liza, believing that a crucial moment in her life had arrived, took up with this foreigner.

  And he loved her exceptionally. And he made her a formal proposal. To this she agreed, and what's more, it even made her very happy, to such an extent that it's quite impossible to describe.

  And then she threw over her husband at once. And began to live with him in her mother's room.

  And although her foreigner spoke scarcely any Russian, and she, on the other hand, spoke only Russian, nevertheless this scarcely served as a barrier to their mutual international happiness.

  In general she was happy and dreamed of Paris, London, the Mediterranean Sea, and so forth.

  But within a month's time, the tourist, having learned to express himself more tolerably in Russian, once had a special talk with her in this language. And from this conversation it emerged that he was by no means planning to depart for Europe. On the contrary, he even wished to settle down here. And that because of the difficult circumstances of the depression, a certain enterprise had been forced to close down over there in Europe, and that he had even been left, as it were, without a job. For that reason he had arrived in the Soviet Union, hoping to find something here in the way of his specialty.

  Paling visibly, she requested him to repeat these coarse Russian phrases of this and that. And he told her the same thing all over again, adding that he had great hopes of setting himself up here, inasmuch as he was a specialist in effervescent and mineral waters. And in the Soviet Union right now, everyone needs these. And if he managed to set himself up here, then within a year they could boldly take a trip to Paris, if that was what she still wanted.

  Then she flared up and asked him, not without venom, why, given his position, simply that of the unemployed, he called himself a tourist, and why he didn't abandon his delicate habits, and why he didn't live in a cheap- room but instead confused those around him with his appearance and behavior, permitting them in their ignorance to draw such conclusions.

  Then he pointed out to her that he really had moved out of the hotel once and for all, and moved over to their place for the sake of economy, so to speak.

  Then she wept and said that if this were so, everything she knew about the way the world was made had become confused in her weak brain. And that she had been of a completely different opinion concerning tourists. She had thought that they all, without exception, traveled for the sake of interest and curiosity, and
not for the reason that he had come. She had never, you see, had anything to do with the unemployed. Of course, here in Russia, we don't even have any. And, lo and behold, she had found one. Why, she'd be better off marrying one of our clerks and at least receiving his hundred rubles a month.

  And because she felt insulted and humiliated, she wept for three days. And ordered the tourist to move back to the hotel, inasmuch as her mother was living in the streets.

  In general, she broke off with him, all the more so since her first husband had cut production costs in his job and had received

  a ten-thousand-ruble premium for this, as was announced in the newspapers.

  Her husband, however, not yet knowing that she was going to return to him, had given away this money to a construction project. He was a great enthusiast and for the most part indifferent to money. So he just gave away this sum to the state.

  When she returned and heard about this, she was so upset that her husband was afraid she might have a breakdown. And then, she, having calmed down somewhat, once again resolved in her heart to find something better.

  And someone told her that that ill-fated writer with whom she had lived not long ago, and with whom she had not been happy, had unexpectedly struck it rich. He had given up writing his weak pieces and, suddenly and unexpectedly, had written a play, which, they say, for power, was not far beneath Boris Shakespeare or something of that sort. And that he was now, literally, splendidly at work.

  She bewailed the fact that she had not anticipated this lucky streak, and wished once again to take up with this dramaturge. But he, it seemed, already had two families and was relatively happy.

  Thanks to this acquaintanceship, she then began to move somewhat closer to the world of the theater, and here she found great possibilities. To top it all off, she became acquainted with a certain stage comedian, who, it was said, earned very, very large sums of money.

  She had wanted to take up with this comedian at once, but at the last moment had become frightened of some kind of swindle or dirty trick on his part, as had been the case with the tourist, or something like that.