And Other Stories Of Communist Russia

by Zoshchenko,Mikhail.

  Hiding her eyes behind an unfolded newspaper so as not to disturb the undressed customers, the manager moved along the dressing room at a rapid pace. Directly behind her minced the thin man in the unbuttoned tunic.

  Approaching the place where everything had happened, the

  manager asked loudly: "Where is it? Who? Who has counterfeit money?"

  The old man rose from the couch and, casting a fierce glance at the thin man, said to the manager: "I don't know what kind of money this midget has, but my money is issued by the state bank. Here is my bankbook, and in it you can clearly see how much was credited to my account and just when I drew out this sum with the exception of thirty-two kopecks."

  Having looked through the old man's bankbook, the manager said: "Everything's in order. Only why in the world did you come to the bathhouse with money like that?"

  The owner of the money replied: "I've been riding in the train for two weeks—I was covered with dust and desperate for a bath. From the train I went to the hotel, took a room, and put my things there. But, naturally, I took the money out of my trunk and took it along with me, so as not to leave it with no one watching."

  "Understandable," said the manager. "But you shouldn't have taken the money out of your account. You should have had it accredited here."

  "They told me about that in the bank," the old man acknowledged. "But I just didn't want to travel separately from my money."

  "Understandable," said the manager once again and turned in order to make some comment to the undersized man who had so misinterpreted the event and who had been in such a hurry to see a crime where in fact there was none. But he had already whisked over to the couch and was dressing himself there hurriedly.

  Once again hiding her eyes behind the newspaper, the manager withdrew. And then the young attendant hastily asked the old man: "Well, and how are you going to live now, pop, with all that money?"

  Laughing, the old man answered: "And what the hell business is it of yours? No, my son, I have no intention of conversing with you on this delicate subject."

  The elderly buffet attendant, coming out from behind his counter, said to the old man: "My nephew, Peter Egorkin, asked you a proper question. We're all extremely interested to know what you plan to do with your capital."

  "What to do? Time will tell," the old man answered evasively, and frowned.

  The buffet attendant, however, went on cross-examining un-

  deterred: "But tell us anyway, honored sir, what kind of plans have you made for yourself?"

  Wrapping his package of money up tightly in his dirty linen, the old man said without marked enthusiasm: "I haven't thought up any plans yet. In the next few days, however, there are some steps I want to take. Tomorrow morning, early, I'm going to go put my money in the bank, and then I'm going to go see if there's a job for me at the artel where I used to work as a locksmith before I left. But if, let's say, they won't take me, then I'll go look for a job in a factory somewhere. In my time I was a craftsman of the seventh grade."

  The young attendant exclaimed: "With money like that, you want to go work in a factory?"

  "What has money got to do with it?" the old man answered angrily. "Money is one thing. But without work, young man, there is little for me to do. I'm not used to lying in bed twenty-four hours a day."

  The attendant laughed soundlessly and said through his laughter: "It turns out, pop, that you saved money for nothing . . ."

  "What do you mean, nothing?" muttered the old man. "I'm planning to buy half a house outside the city if I can't find an apartment here."

  The buffet attendant remarked: "They'll give you an apartment if you go to work in a factory. As for half a house—would that take much? Not more than thirty thousand. With your money, that's a drop in the bucket."

  The old man got up from the couch, and, becoming more and more irritated, said: "Aye, well, money won't hurt me! I'll eat veal. I'll buy furniture. A phonograph. A piano."

  The buffet attendant inhaled noisily and returned to his counter. The owner of the money, continuing to feel angry, put on his cap and picked up his wrapped package. The attendant, Peter Egorkin, unexpectedly even for himself, said to the old man in an elevated tone: "There are children among us here in the bathhouse! It would seem that with such a pile of money you could buy them a few candies."

  The old man, who had been about to leave, waited. He said: "Children—that's another matter. I will never refuse to help a friend out of trouble and I will always have a little something for chilren. Where are the children here?"

  The attendant turned to the couch where the young father and

  his son had been sitting, but it seemed that they had gone to wash. The attendant said with indignation: "The children have gone. They didn't wait."

  "Well, if they didn't wait, I'm not going to run after them," muttered the old man and made his way to the exit. Then, all of a sudden he turned around and asked the attendant: "And you personally, young man, do you have children?"

  Smiling, the young attendant replied: "I've got a daughter a-year-and-a-half old. Preschool age."

  The old man went up to the counter and in his fluent tenor, he asked the buffet attendant: "And what do you have for children?"

  "We don't stock anything for children except chocolate," the buffet attendant answered. "Here is 'Golden Anchor'—sixteen rubles a slab. We also have soybean chocolate at three rubles."

  "Let's have the soybean at three rubles," said the old man.

  At first, the young attendant refused the gift and even blushed, but the old man insisted, saying: "I'm not giving it to you, I'm giving it to your daughter. Only, look, don't eat it yourself. Give it right to your daughter."

  "Why would I eat it?" answered the attendant. "I'll break off a small piece, naturally, just to taste. But the rest I'll give to my daughter. Clearly."

  Giving him change from a ten-ruble note, the buffet attendant said to the old man: "You decided rightly to work in a factory, honored sir. When I didn't work for two months, I was in such a bad mood I didn't know what to do with myself. I couldn't even sleep. But when I went to work again, then I had good dreams."

  "Yes, I don't get on well without work," muttered the old man, attentively counting his change.

  This counting of change, for some reason, offended the buffet attendant very much. Smiling crookedly, he said to the old man: "My nephew, Peter Makarovich Egorkin, was absolutely right. You saved your capital for nothing. It suits you like a saddle on a cow. All you can do is take it to the bathhouse with you and entertain people."

  Losing his temper, the old man asked: "Do you think I saved it up out of greediness, or what?"

  Scratching a solid wart near his ear, the buffet attendant answered tactfully: "People put money away for different reasons. Naturally, there are some who save because they're greedy. Others —for their old age, or so they'll be able to buy various things

  they wanted. But then there are some who save because they respect capital."

  I thought that an answer like that would further anger the old man, but this did not happen. Smiling broadly, he exclaimed: "You've gone over them all, master, but you haven't been able to discover my reason. I'll tell you. Since I was eight, I've dreamed of saving up a certain sum to free my parents from their constant need. My parents have been in the everlasting now for almost fifty years, but this childish little idea of saving money for some reason has stuck in my head. It has stuck like a splinter which sinks in more every time I try to pull it out. All my long life, I haven't succeeded. Now—I've saved up. Naturally, I'm glad, I don't conceal it. But I don't get any real satisfaction out of it. I don't have anyone to rejoice over it except myself."

  This modest answer pleased the buffet attendant, and, while saying good-bye to him kindly, he said to him in a comforting way: "Generally speaking, money won't hurt you; there's nothing to be sad about."

  The owner of the money nodded his head affirmatively and passed through the exit with his bloa
ted package.

  BEFORE THE SUN RISES

  A NOVELLA

  PREFACE

  I thought of writing this book a very long time ago. Immediately after my Youth Restored saw the light.

  I collected materials for this new book for almost ten years and waited for a peaceful year so I could sit down to write in the quiet of my study.

  But this did not come about.

  On the contrary. Twice, German bombs fell near my materials. The portfolio in which I kept my manuscripts was strewn with bricks and lime. Fire licked them. And I'm surprised, as things turned out, that they were preserved.

  The collected material flew^with me in an airplane over the German front, out of besieged Leningrad.

  I took twenty heavy notebooks with me. In order to lessen their weight, I tore off the leather bindings. They still weighed close to eight kilograms, of the twelve kilograms of baggage allowed me for the flight. And there was a moment when I went into despair that I had taken this rubbish with me instead of warm underwear or an extra pair of boots.

  Love of literature triumphed, however. I reconciled myself to my unhappy fate.

  In a dark, torn portfolio I carried my manuscripts into central Asia, to the town of Alma-Ata, blessed from henceforth.

  Here I was busy for a whole year writing various scenarios on themes that were needed in the days of the great Fatherland war.

  I kept the material I had brought with me under the wooden couch on which I slept.

  From time to time, I lifted them out of my couch. There, on the plywood bottom, rested twenty of my notebooks along with a sack of sweets which I had prepared according to my Leningrad custom.

  I paged through these notebooks, regretting bitterly that there

  had been no time to take up this work, which seemed so unnecessary now, so far removed from the war, from the rumble of artillery and the whistling of bullets.

  "It's nothing," I said to myself, "as soon as the war ends, I'll take up this work."

  Once again, I packed away my notebooks in the bottom of my couch. And lying on them, the question flickered through my mind: When did I think the war would really be over? Not very soon, clearly. But when! —I could not really come to an answer.

  "Well, then, why hasn't the time come for me to take up this work of mine?"—that's the way I was thinking. "But my materials have to do with the formation of the human intellect, of science, of the advance of consciousness. My work refutes the 'philosophy' of Fascism, which says that consciousness visits innumerable ills on people, that human happiness lies in a return to barbarism, to savagery, in a denial of civilization."

  It might very well be more interesting to read about it now than at any time in the future.

  In August 1942,1 put my manuscripts on the table, and, without waiting for the war to end, I set to work.

  /. PROLOGUE

  Ten years ago I wrote the novella called Youth Restored.

  It was an ordinary novella, one of those the majority of which are written by writers. But to it were added commentaries—notes of a physiological nature.

  These notes explained the behavior of the novella's heroes and provided the reader with some information on the physiology and psychology of man.

  I did not write Youth Restored for men of science. Nevertheless, they turned to my work with special interest. There were many disputes. There were quarrels. I heard many biting remarks. But some nice things were said, too.

  It disturbed me that scholars took issue with me so seriously and so intensely. That doesn't mean (I thought) that I know a lot, but rather that science, it seems, has not sufficiently concerned itself with these problems which I, by virtue of my inexperience, had the boldness to touch on.

  Be that as it may, the scholars discussed matters with me almost as with an equal. And I even began to receive summonses to the

  sessions of the "Brain Institute." And Ivan Petrovich Pavlov invited me to his "meetings."

  But I, I repeat, hadn't composed my work for science. This had been a literary production, and the scientific material had been only a complementary part.

  It always struck me: The painter, before he paints the human body is obliged of necessity to study anatomy. Only a knowledge of this science could deliver the painter from mistakes in drawing. But the writer, into whose compass more than man's body enters —his psyche, his consciousness—does not often strive to attain knowledge of a similar kind. I considered it my obligation to study something alojig this line. And, having studied, I shared the results with the reader.

  That's the way Youth Restored came about.

  Now that ten years have passed, I see very well the defects of my book: It was incomplete and one-sided. And probably I deserved to have been attacked more than I actually was.

  In the fall of 1934,1 got to know a remarkable physiologist.

  When talk came around to my work, this physiologist said: "I prefer your usual stories. But I admit that what you write about should be written about. Studying consciousness isn't only a matter for the man of science. I suspect that it is as yet even more a matter for the writer than for the man of science. I am a physiologist, so I'm not afraid to say it."

  I answered: "I think so too. The region of consciousness, the region of higher psychological activity, belongs more to us than to you. Man's behavior can and must be studied with the aid of dogs and lancets. But a man (and a dog, too) sometimes has fantasies which can in an extraordinary way change the momentum of his existence even in the course of one and the same stimulus. And in this sense it might sometimes be necessary to have a 'conversation with a dog' in order to analyze his dreams in all their complexity. And a 'conversation with a dog' —on the whole that's something in our province."

  Smiling, the scientist said: "You're partly right. The correspondence between the intensity of the stimulus and the response is often disproportionate, especially in the field of sensation. But if you have pretensions in this province, you really must expect to run into us there."

  After this conversation, some years passed. Having learned

  that I was working on a new book, the physiologist asked me to tell him about this work.

  I said: "In brief, it's a book about how I survived many unnecessary sorrows and became a happy man."

  "Will this be a treatise or a novel?"

  "It will be a literary work. Science will enter into it, as in other cases history enters into a novel."

  "Will there be commentaries again?"

  "No. This will be something integral. Like a gun and shell can be a single whole."

  "Will this work be about yourself?"

  "Half the book will be occupied with my person. I will not conceal from you the fact that this troubles me."

  "You'll be telling about your life?"

  "No. Worse than that. I will tell about things that it isn't entirely acceptable to talk about in novels. It comforts me that it will deal with the years of my youth. That's the same as talking about the dead."

  'To what age will you go, in your book?"

  "Roughly to thirty."

  "Maybe it would be a good idea to add another fifteen years. Then the book would be fuller—about your whole life."

  "No," I said. "From thirty on, I was quite a different man— no longer an appropriate subject for my work."

  "How did such a change come about?"

  "One can't even call it a change. It's an entirely different life, and it doesn't at all resemble the former one."

  "But in what way? Was this psychoanalysis? Freud?"

  "Not at all. It was Pavlov. I used his principle. It was his idea."

  "But what did you do yourself?"

  "Essentially, I did a very simple thing. I collected those things which disturbed me—incorrect conditioned reflexes, which had been mistakenly ingrained in my consciousness. I destroyed the false connection between them. I dissected the 'temporary connections,' as Pavlov called them."

  "In what way?"

  At
that time I had not fully thought through my materials and therefore found it difficult to answer this question. But concerning the principle, I answered. True, I was very foggy.

  Having pondered my reply, the man of science answered: "Go ahead and write. But don't promise people anything."

  I said: "I'll be careful. I will promise only that which I've already achieved. And only to those people who have qualities close to mine."

  Laughing, the scientist said: "That's not much. And it's right. Tolstoi's philosophy, for example, was useful only to him, and to nobody else."

  I answered: "Tolstoi's philosophy was religion, not science. It was faith which helped him. I stand far from religion. I do not speak of faith or of a philosophical system. I speak of iron rules, confirmed by a great scholar. My part in this matter is a modest one: by the proof of a man's life I have verified these rules, and I have connected things which seemed not to have any connection."

  I said good-bye to the scientist and I have not seen him since. He probably came to the conclusion that I gave up my book, never really coming to terms with it.

  But I—as I have already explained—was only waiting for a year of peace and quiet.

  This did not come to pass. It's too bad. I write badly to the sound of artillery. Beauty will undoubtedly be diminished. My agitation will make the style shaky. Alarms will stifle clear-sighted knowledge. Nervousness will be taken for haste. There will be seen in this a lack of caution with regard to science, a lack of respect for the world of scholarship .. ,

  Scholar!

  Where you see my speech uncivil—

  Root it out, I give permission.

  May the enlightened reader forgive my trespasses.

  //. / AM UNHAPPY—AND DON'T KNOW WHY

  When I recall my early years, I am struck by the number of sorrows, false alarms, and fits of melancholy that I had.

  The very best years of my youth were underlined in black.

  When I was a child, I experienced nothing like that.

  But my very first steps as a young man were overshadowed by this amazing melancholy which I do not know how to describe.

  I strove toward people, life pleasured me, I sought friends, love, happy meetings . . . But I found no comfort for myself in