“Not so loud …” Sergei looked around. “Of course no one’s watching me. How could they out here? When I first arrived … I thought I might say I was looking to take lessons, but I rejected that idea later; I mean, this isn’t even a town—it’s really more of a large village.”
“Yes, yes! … Well?”
“Well, what’s there to say? … I’ve set myself up here—under the simple guise of a convalescent. And there you have it. I haven’t any acquaintances, and seeing as there isn’t anyone to … Anyway, enough of that …”
“Yes, yes, yes! … And do you realize that you, my fine fellow, are living in clover? … Others”—he lowered his voice—“are kept in quarantine for five or six or even nine months before the deed! There’s nothing to be done about it! It has to be this way. It has to, you understand? You’ve got to clean yourself so that there’s no trace of black powder and no root can be pulled up … Do you know, frankly speaking, I doubted you had it in you to stay in this … ha-ha! … this cell under a fir tree. But here you are, in the flesh. Hmm …”
He dropped his pince-nez, picked it up, saddled it on his nose, and enigmatically asked:
“Who’s putting you up? Eh?”
“The head of the family and the owner of this little house works as a blacksmith at the railway depot. A gentle sort and, as they say, God-fearing. When he comes home from work in the evenings, sighing long and heavily, he takes tea, and on Sundays he gets blind drunk and says the sweetest little things. He cries and starts to repent of something … And then his wife’s a whole bazaar: pock-marked, stout, and coarse, with a voice like brass. From dawn till dusk, she curses everything under the sun. They have two daughters: one’s a little crybaby, but the older one isn’t half bad …”
The diminutive man listened, chuckling with approval and slapping Sergei on the shoulder as he adjusted his pince-nez.
“Well, well? Yes?” he repeated incessantly, thinking of something else all the while. And when Sergei had finished, Valerian looked him in the eyes pointedly, full of emotion and melancholy.
“Well, what’s it to be?” he said quietly. “When do you expect you’ll be going, eh?”
And, as though fearing that he had posed the cutting question much too soon and too bluntly, he quickly put in:
“I suppose you’ve been dreadfully bored here, yes?”
The noose gripping Sergei’s throat slowly loosened, and, trying to be cool-headed and firm, he said:
“N-no … not very … I’ve been hunting, reading … I’m terribly fond of nature.”
“Nature, yes …” said Valerian distractedly, and a tense concentration descended over the muscles of his sallow, swarthy face. “Well … it’s … are you ready?”
He lowered his voice and looked Sergei straight in the eye with a thoughtful, measuring gaze. All at once everything amusing in his mannerisms and appearance inexplicably faded. He went on, as though arguing with himself:
“I think that the time has probably come for you to get a move on … I brought the goods with me. I put it in your dresser. Now, listen—be careful, and watch what you’re doing! … So long as you don’t drop it or have a game of skittles with it, you could happily take it all the way to Kamchatka. That’s the first thing. Next up is money. How much do you have? …”
The question lingered in the air, and even after it had died away, it continued to ring in Sergei’s ears. He began to feel painfully ashamed and sorry for himself on account of all the deception of this conversation, which was futile from first to last and disguised miserably by an air of nonchalance and the calm of a friendly chat. He grinned inanely, whistled dramatically through his teeth, and said in a devious, subtle voice:
“Oh, Valerian! I feel just wretched … Essentially, what you’ve … quite in vain, that is … I mean to say … You see, I’ve … reconsidered. Only …”
With a crushing, loathsome feeling, Sergei turned his head. Those myopic black, bewilderedly blinking eyes were staring right at him. Valerian gave a crooked grin and, raising his eyebrows, adjusted his pince-nez with an inquiring look. Something quivered in his thin, sallow throat, which rose and fell as though it were trying to swallow solid food. He said merely:
“What?! Get out of my sight! …”
The tone of his voice, curiously unfamiliar and dry, rendered any explanation unnecessary. He sat there, firmly biting his lower lip, and wiped his bulbous, perspiring forehead with the palm of his hand. So confident and restless only a moment ago, he now seemed weary and pitiful.
“Valerian!” Sergei said after a pause. “Be that as it may … Valerian, are you listening?”
However, as he watched him intently, he marked with astonishment that Valerian was weeping. Great, implacable tears were streaming down his swarthy cheeks from those rapidly blinking myopic eyes, while the nervous convulsions of a grin flashed at the corners of his mouth. And it was so difficult to see this hardened, grown man look pitiful and bemused that Sergei was in the first instance taken aback and at a total loss.
“Now see here, what’s all this?” he said helplessly after a brief, awkward silence. “Come, where’s the good in this?”
“Oh, leave me! Leave me! I said, leave me!” Valerian shrieked angrily, feeling Sergei’s hand on his shoulder. “Please, leave me …”
But then, with a quick effort of will, he suppressed the momentary emotion and dried his eyes. He jumped to his feet, fixed his pince-nez in place before rattling off in a halting, subdued voice:
“Here’s what we need to do: come on! Do you hear? You and I need to have a little chat! Where shall we go, eh? Do you know a good spot? Or shall we just head into the field? Into the field seems like the best option …”
They went into the yard, which felt hot after the cool of the little green garden with its white perimeter of log buildings. Dunya was standing on the porch, dressed in tattered blue-striped calico; beside her stood Glafira, her mother, a fat, fleshy woman. They were feeding the chickens. On seeing Sergei, Glafira broke into a broad smile and bent double, bowing deeply to the youth.
“Good day to you, Sergei Ivanych!” she sang. “You look as though you’re about to set out on a walk! Won’t you have some tea? You should at least give some tea to your guest! I say, you’re so undomesticated, so restless.”
“Later,” Sergei said, as he smiled distractedly at Dunya, who was watching him from under her round, plump hand. “Do put the samovar on, though. We’ll be back later …”
Something was stirring, bubbling in his chest: confused, agitated thoughts thrashed about incoherently, seeking clear, sure words of comfort. Yet everything that met his eyes distracted and diverted him. With cries and clattering, peasants rode by, goats bleated, the tolling of bells rang out before fading away, and gates rattled. Valerian walked beside him, dark and diminutive, clutching Sergei by the elbow and wildly gesticulating with his free hand. Tired and on edge, fingering his pince-nez, he kept repeating, scornfully and plaintively:
“But how could you, eh? How? What? What have you done? Isn’t this the height of piggery and childishness, hmm? Really, you aren’t a child anymore, are you? Oh, oh! …”
He groaned and smacked his lips. So very rapidly he was turning something over in his mind, and was barely keeping pace with his comrade’s long strides. Judging by the tone of his voice, which was calmer now, and by his slight, plaintive, malevolent grin, Sergei saw that the worst of it was already over, and now all that remained was talk—pointless and unnecessary though it was.
“Well, what will you do now, hmm? Well?”
All of a sudden, Sergei wanted this impetuous man, this good man whom he had deeply offended, to understand and feel his, Sergei’s, words, thoughts, and wishes—as he himself understood and felt them. And, forgetting the vast gulf that separated his inner world from that of the clear, grimly logical conclusions that constituted the center, the sense, the nucleus of this dark, diminutive man’s life, this man who was walking beside him, he shuddered from
head to toe and grew impatient with the desire to express himself simply, justly, and powerfully.
“Valerian, listen to me! …”
Sergei took a deep breath and paused to choose his words. Inside him, everything was clean-cut and sure, but this was because the simplicity of his feelings stemmed from an incalculable complexity of impressions and thoughts—he had yet to grasp the principal, central theme of his emotions.
“Well?” Valerian drawled wearily. “Speak! What do you have to say?”
“Here’s what,” Sergei began. “Of course, not for anything should I ever be able to divulge this to another soul … But this is what it comes down to. This is the example I wanted to give you … So-o … here it is: have you ever walked past shop windows, and … well … looked … at … bronze statuettes? of women?”
“I have … Go on! …”
“Well, when I look at these elliptical, harmonious … distinct … lines … lines that are frozen forever in the form … that the artist has given them … dead, and yet soft and animate … I always think—now what do I think?—that this is how the soul of a revolutionary ought to be … Soft and yet like metal, definitive … Bright, cast from bronze, strong … and—feminine … Feminine because … well, in any case … Well now … Now see here … I’ve never considered myself one of them at all, and I still don’t … Of course, that would be ridiculous … Only because I’m not like that, but I wanted to live among such people … Their metal is altruism—and their lines the idea … Do you see? Whereas this isn’t altruism alone, but—”
“Yes, of course,” Valerian interrupted distractedly. “But what of it?”
“ … but perhaps it’s turned out just the same for me,” Sergei added quietly.
His excitement suddenly waned. It seemed as if his true, sincere thoughts were still wasting away deep within him, and he was not saying what he thought. Valerian said nothing.
“Yes …” Sergei slowly continued. “Everything’s the same, everything as it is: ambition, the desire for intense emotions, and, ultimately, often simply the thrill alone … But if that’s so, then I can no longer be like metal … And so I don’t want to die an effigy of vanity …”
“Remarkable!” Valerian sneered. “Oh, you fool! Of course, all people are human, and nothing human is alien to them! So what? Are you disillusioned?”
“By no means! …” Sergei dryly cut in.
And with a fleeting, sly smile, his other, secret thoughts slipped out, along with his desire for a great, romantic life, one that was beautiful, whole, unrestrained, and devoid of suffering. What he had just told Valerian was sincere enough, but it bore little relation to what he wanted right then. Instead of all this complex labyrinth of petty disappointments, stale devotion, and dissatisfaction with people, the powerful, irrepressible voice of young blood cried out: “I don’t want to die; I want to live. It’s as simple as that.”
“It’s a remarkable thing,” said Valerian, tilting his head back farther, adjusting his pince-nez, and curiously examining his comrade’s face. “You reason like a woman. You know, there’s a decadence about you … You haven’t been reading Max Stirner,* have you? Or, ha! … Ha! … Nietzsche? No? Well, let’s leave it. Do you have money?”
“No, Valerian, you’ve got it all wrong,” Sergei began again, angry at himself for wanting and being unable to express the simple essence of what was and would continue to be inside him, as it would in any other person. “You know, I left prison broken, feeling spiteful, my nerves in tatters … I was like a drunkard … I was drunk on ideas—and so my plan ripened … My nerves reacted with painful speed … But as I’ve already told you, I cannot be a hero, and I do not want to be a cog in the machine …”
“No!” Valerian laughed. “You haven’t told me anything yet! … Hmm? It’s only natural that you want to live, just like any other man, but what’s all this about bronze statues? these revelations of yours? And why did you … Ach! You know, I’d never doubted you for a second! …”
He raised his eyebrows in surprise and slowed his pace. The field exuded heat; in the distance the town was dappled with gray, red, and green roofs.
“The Central Committee has had quite enough of you! You talked their ears off about this! Very nearly with tears in your eyes you begged and badgered them … Do you think there weren’t others? Shame on you! All that prancing and jumping around … So now what? … You might have written! Hmm?”
Sergei said nothing. His irritation was growing and bubbling to the surface.
“For a start, I hadn’t expected that the moment would come so soon …” he said brusquely. “But now … I just told you … Do as you will.”
“Come, come … So, what do you intend to do now?”
“I don’t know … In any case, it’s of no consequence.”
“Yes-s … Perhaps that’s so … It’s your affair … Very well, then. Farewell!”
“Where are you going?” Sergei was astonished.
“There, of course!” Valerian waved his hand in the direction where, far beyond the thicket, stood the red brick structure of the railway station. “I can still catch my train; I’ve deposited my luggage … Well, all the best.”
He firmly shook Sergei’s hand, while his quick, black eyes fixed their gaze on him through the convex lens of his pince-nez.
“Yes!” He started. “I left it in your room. It’s of no use to me now … You can dispose of it somewhere—in the woods, perhaps, or in some out-of-the-way spot …”
“All right,” Sergei said dejectedly. He felt sorry for Valerian and wanted to say something heartfelt and touching, but he hadn’t the words—only a sense of alarm and alienation.
The dark, diminutive man hurried to the station, swinging his arms as he went. For a long time Sergei watched him go, until the scrawny little figure had turned into nothing but a crawling black speck. A moment later it appeared as though Valerian had turned around, and Sergei rushed to wave his handkerchief as he peered into the green emptiness. But no response came.
The black speck rose up once again as it crossed a hillock before vanishing. The sun mercilessly cast its arid amber light, and the green of the young grass glittered and basked in it. In the distance the air quivered and shimmered, disturbing the outlines of fences, like lines on notepaper. Beyond the thicket, white puffs of smoke rose up, and a locomotive cried out in alarm.
As Sergei walked home, he recalled everything he had said to Valerian. With an obscure, vague sorrow, he lamented the past.
VI.
He had grown weary of pacing back and forth in the small room, brushing against the corner of the table and slowly turning around when he reached the low, yellowing door. With each turn, Sergei listened to the springy squeak of his toe cap before setting off again, marking the sound of his footsteps without thinking. It was easier to think on his feet. He had been used to this since his days spent in a prison cell, of which this room somehow—probably in its dimensions—reminded him.
His feeling of excitement had long since passed, and he was left instead with that of a man who goes to see a matinee: the evening light, the music, the acting … For several hours he watches and listens to a tidy, poetic slice of life … Only then for the shrill white light of day to rule and thunder once again, and for him to crave anew the deceitful, golden evening light.
The flat, smug wallpaper flaunted a motley array of colors around a few grimy, painted flowers. The curtain billowed in the wind and rippled gently over the table, disturbing some scraps of paper and a gnawed pencil. Titles of books assaulted his eyes, provoking a sense of dreariness and disgust. Grim, cold, and unbearably tedious, they engendered visions of monotonous life in an industrial world, innumerable rows of figures, hemp, sugar, and iron, visions of everything that is and yet should not be.
The light faded, fleeing the town with smooth, colossal steps, its sorry shadow creeping behind it. From somewhere came the rich, steady sound of an axe at work; a hammer quickly came to interrupt it, an
d for a long time two strikes, one heavy, the other light, chased one another in the quiet air. Sergei yawned sweetly, fitfully, cracked his knuckles, and came to a halt opposite the table.
Between the books and the writing set stood a little metallic box that, in form and its dusky gray color, looked more like a soap dish than a bomb. There was something comic and at the same time tragic in its shunned, redundant danger, and it seemed as if it might avenge itself, suddenly, terribly, and without warning.
He remembered now that he had immediately felt some foreign presence, an almost living entity, as he entered the room. This entity had peered at him craftily, probing him with its gaze, with one eye through the side of the dresser, docile and yet threatening, like a quick-tempered slave ready to cast off his submission. Now it lay there on the table, and Sergei observed this oblong steel box with an eerie curiosity, as when one observes an animal roaming outside the thick bars of its cage. He wanted to know what would happen if he were to take this object, so boring to look at, and lob it against the wall. An acute, alarming chill ran through him as he thought this, a ringing developed in his ears, and the building began to seem as if it were made of paper.
The gray shadows of twilight entered the room unheard. Tedium tormented Sergei, and his body was afflicted with an impatient itch. In an attempt to banish it, he thought of the impending expanse of life, his youth, and the brilliance of a spring day. But turbid darkness blackened the window, and his thought, paralyzed by this, trembled in the embrace of dull, dreary uncertainty. This gave rise to irritation and timorous, quiet meditation. And all of a sudden, at first slowly, but then quickly and more distinctly, the antique melody of a naive children’s song appeared and sang out in his brain:
The tsa-a-ar, tsa-a-ar, tsa-a-ar’s son,
Trod upon her toe-sies, the tsa-a-ar, tsa-a-ar,
Tsa-a-ar’s son,
Take her to your heart-ie, the tsa-a-ar, tsa-a-ar,
Tsa-a-ar’s son.
Fandango and Other Stories Page 5