“Yes?” the girl quickly replied. She immediately carried on in an affectedly carefree tone of voice: “Oh, look, how many stars there are! See how they just float there in the sky!”
Another keen, tense silence ensued. Its invisible thread stretched tremulously between them, hindering their thoughts and speech.
“Dunya!” Sergei repeated. He reached out his hand gropingly and touched her fingers, quivering as he felt her soft, hot body. A heavy lump grew in his chest, which respired with short, deep contractions. The girl sat stock-still, as though slumbering. He proceeded to clasp her hand firmly, and, blushing in the darkness, he clumsily pulled her to himself. Her hand stubbornly resisted, trembling under his hot, powerful fingers. A feeble, bashful, feverish whisper flew out:
“Stop that, please … Stop … Whatever are you doing?!”
She tried to jerk her hand away, but, seeing that Sergei was relenting, she suddenly squeezed his palm with her moist, slender fingers. A wave of intoxication rushed to his face. He seized the girl by the arm, just above her elbow, while with his other hand he embraced her from the front, squeezing her pert breast and feverishly kissing her fragrant, fluffy hair. Dunya sighed feebly and, with a shudder, fell silent. With greedy, clumsy movements, Sergei rushed fumblingly to unbutton her blouse and thrilled at the touch of her hot, dewy body.
All of a sudden she leapt up, desperately breaking free and reaching out her hands. Her crumpled white chemise fluttered against the dark curve of her figure. In a fog of confusion, Sergei threw himself at her, but two slender, feminine arms struck his chest, forcefully repelling it.
“Dunya … darling—come, now … what are you doing?!”
“No, no, no!” the girl hastened in a desolate, imploring whisper, staggering and breathing heavily. “No, no! … Sergei Ivanych, darling, you mustn’t! … Tomorrow … I’ll tell you tomorrow! …”
Like birds, her words flitted past Sergei as a series of empty, meaningless sounds. And again, alarmed and rushing, he pulled her toward him, wringing her delicate, slender hand.
Dunya wrenched herself away with one final, decisive movement, and after a crack and the sound of rapid steps, the bushes fell quiet. A moment later, in the depths of the yard, a door slammed and everything was silent, but to Sergei it still seemed as if in the dark, damp air the girl’s frightened heart was still beating loudly and rapidly. The illusion was so powerful that he instinctively reached out his hand. The hand touched the void before lowering again. It was his own heart that was beating so anxiously.
He sat down on the ground, and, trembling all over from an unrelenting sense of excitement, he pressed damp, cold leaves to his burning face. His heart was still beating, but more quietly and evenly now. A hush filled the garden.
Dunya, Valerian, the steel box, the explosion, the false passport, Dunya again—it all flashed by and became jumbled in his head, like a kaleidoscope of irregular images. Tomorrow he would leave this quiet, sleepy town—leave to lead another, uncertain life.
“To live!” he said in a hushed voice, pricking up his ears. “How good it is to live …”
* Liberationists … Spark: The Union of Liberation was a clandestine liberal political group founded in St. Petersburg in 1904 under the aegis of Pyotr Struve (1870–1944), a former Marxist who advocated, among other things, for a constitutional monarchy and the granting of full civil rights to citizens across the Russian Empire. The Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, a revolutionary socialist political party, was formed in 1898 with the aim of uniting disparate revolutionary organizations extant throughout Russia. Its newspaper, the Spark, founded by Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924), was published abroad, variously in Leipzig, Munich, Geneva, and London, due to censorship, and smuggled back into Russia. Revolutionary Russia was a similar clandestine periodical, published in Geneva as an organ of the Socialist Revolutionary Party.
* Max Stirner: Johann Kaspar Schmidt (1806–1856), better known as Max Stirner, was a German philosopher, often regarded as a forerunner of, among other things, nihilism, individualism, existentialism, and anarchism.
“SHE”
I.
He had just one prayer, only one. There had been a time when he never prayed at all, even as life wrenched cries of impotence and rage from his distraught soul. But now, sitting of an evening by an open window as the city switched on its countless silent lights, or on the deck of a ship when the approaching dawn wore a rosy haze, or in the compartment of a railway carriage, casting weary glances over the velvet and gilt of the fittings—now he prayed, and with his prayer concluded a rumbling, restless day full of anguish. His lips would whisper:
“I don’t know whether I believe in You. I don’t know whether You exist. I know nothing, nothing at all. But please, help me find her. Her, only her. I won’t plague You with tears or entreaties for my happiness. I won’t lay a finger on her if she’s happy; she won’t even know I’m there. But let me see her just once—only once. I’ll kiss the ground she walks on. I’ll unveil a vast ocean of tenderness and anguish before her very eyes. Are You listening, O Lord? Return her, give her back to me!”
But the night would preserve its silence, and carriages with fiery eyes would fly by in a clatter of hooves, and the street would dance on in sinister nocturnal merriment, growing ever more intoxicated. And the ship would course through the rosy haze toward the fiery light gilding the horizon. And the locomotive would rumble on in its iron armor, rhythmically striking the rails. And no answer would come to his prayer.
He would fly into a rage and stamp his feet, silently cry, and purse his blanched lips. And again, in anguish, trembling with rage, he would cry out:
“Aren’t You listening? Can’t You hear me? Give her back to me!”
In his youth he had trampled over the faith of others and scoffed heartily at idols that were as powerless as the men who made them. But now, in the temple of his soul, he was creating divinity, creating diligently and jealously, crafting the gentle, merciful image of an omnipotent being. It was from the remnants of his childhood memories, from the moments of tenderness in the face of eternity scattered throughout his life, from the church crosses and chants that he built his dark, merciful image, and he prayed to it.
Millions of people walked past him, but he had no need of these millions. They were strangers to him, just as he was to them—a sound, a number, a name, an empty room. There was only one person he needed, only one person he desired. But that person was missing. That great array of faces, gaits, hearts, and glances did not exist for him. What he needed was one glance, one face, and one heart. But that person, that woman, was missing.
From one day to the next, his face, eyes closed, was graced by twilight’s sorrowful caress, and his head would slump down onto his arms. The evening shadows would crowd around, watching and listening to inexpressible thoughts, nameless feelings, and colorless visions.
His eyes would open and question the darkness and the shapes he saw, while the inexpressible thoughts crowded in his soul.
Then he would say something, and as he spoke he would listen to his voice, but his voice would sound forlorn. And those shapes and inexpressible thoughts would forestall his words, bringing a lump to his throat and constricting his breath. Looming darkly, the burgeoning twilight shadows would hear his complaint.
“I’m alone, my darling, all alone. But where are you? I don’t know. Every day I see the lights of railway carriage windows go hurtling by—the people in these windows are singing, laughing, and eating. But you aren’t among them, my darling!
“Ships, giants with countless eyes, call in at the harbor every day, where the electric lights are blinding, and a dense, black crowd throngs. People in their hundreds go up and down the gangways, in joy and sorrow, but you are not among them, my darling!
“The streets rumble, restaurant signs flash like diadems, and the delirious city spills out wave upon wave of people. Young and old, men and women, schoolboys and streetwalkers, beauties and beggars—they a
ll walk past me, jostling me and staring, but you are not among them, my darling!
“I seek and I want you. I want to feel your caresses, I want to be happy. I no longer remember the sound of your laugh. I’ve forgotten the smell of your hair, the play of your lips. I’ll find you. I’ll run after every woman who looks like you, and when I catch up with her, I’ll rain curses on her. I’m tormented by thirst, and my breast has run dry, but you’re missing. I summon you! Appear! Come, sit on my lap, press your cheek to my face and laugh as you used to laugh, with the gold of the sun and a zest for life. I’ll rock you, cradle you in my arms, let your tresses down and kiss each individual hair. I’ll sing you to sleep with a lullaby.”
The minutes and hours passed to the sonorous ticking of a pendulum that beat out the seconds in a charged, excruciating silence. Yet still he sat there, transfixed by his suffering, swaying from side to side. Then, from the terrible black depths of his soul, somebody began to hoist up, on chains and pulleys, a load of untold weight. These furtive labors sent the blood rushing to his temples, where it throbbed and spoke in a rapid, crazed whisper. Anguish thrashed about, beating its sharp wings within his heart, and with each stroke of its wings, his heart wanted to cry out, let out a low groan—his heart, which was ready to burst like a gutta-percha ball. Yet the weight was hoisted higher still, creaking as it went and slowly pressing his chest, forcing the air from his lungs, and there it tossed around with its sharp edges.
He would clutch his head in his hands and, tensing his shaking body, drive out that inhuman weight. But the load—the burden of memory—went on growing, gaining momentum like an avalanche, and ringing with forgotten words, rosy laughter, and the delight of lowered eyelashes.
He would cry out:
“I don’t want this! This cannot be!”
But each time, exhausted and powerless, he would realize over and over again the enormity of what happens only once, never to repeat itself, not for him, not for someone else, not for anyone, never …
II.
The garden was dark, damp, and beautiful. He had not seen her for three days, and now he came, trembling, satisfied, and bashful. The sand crunched beneath their feet; she seemed to be smiling in the dark, mocking his love, watching it and plotting. The excitement of it tormented him further still, and the silence grew painful.
They sat down; he recoiled from her knees, fearing that their touch would inflame his love and that incoherent, serious words would break free. Then he would have to go. It would all be over and he would never see her again. So ran his thoughts during the five minutes before the happiest moments of his life.
“I waited for you yesterday,” the girl said, “and the day before, and today. Is that really the way to treat a friend?”
Her voice betrayed a tender expectation, but to him it seemed like mockery, and this feeling of bitter insult made it hard to breathe. Overcoming his emotion, he asked her abruptly and irritably:
“Why did you wait? What do you care?”
Amid the dark he sensed the girl’s face blanch and shrink from his abruptness, her eyes become deep and sad. After a brief silence, she said falteringly:
“If you … I don’t know. If you don’t care, then naturally … Why don’t we go for a stroll? Sitting’s such a bore.”
But already he was gripped by a sense of pity for both himself and her, by remorse and a feeling of tenderness for the object of his love. Without even realizing it, he took her hands in his—those dainty little fingers were so warm and infinitely sweet—and said, first mentally and then aloud:
“Darling! Darling! Forgive me!”
Silence fell. It seemed as though it would never end. Yet vigorous palpitations of joy were already nearing. Was music playing then, was there someone singing? He no longer recalled. The scene seemed to brighten and become excruciatingly sweet. She held her hands in his; it was he who carefully and reverently let go of her fingers. Was his heart pounding, was there someone singing? He no longer recalled.
The girl—his beloved, his joy—got up, and without a word, understanding her every move, he went after her, following her into her room, where for a long time, with tears in his eyes, he watched, watched her blushing face, which had suddenly become closer than close and so utterly artless and kind. She laughed and talked, while the lace on her breast fluttered like a butterfly:
“Tell me you love me!”
He repeated the words with shame and embarrassment:
“I love you! I love you! Or rather—it’s you I love! …”
She turned away, laughing; he watched her shoulders quiver with mirth and the edge of her little pink ear, which was enwreathed by a little lock of chestnut hair. He walked over to her, embraced her from behind, around her shoulders and neck, and shivered from the touch of her warm, trembling body. She nuzzled her little round chin into his arm, staring straight ahead at the wall, her eyes happy and shining nervously. He asked:
“May I hold you in my arms?”
Her fitful, inaudible laughter intensified. She laughed because he was so absurd: first to take her in his arms and only then to ask her permission …
III.
Thus he would sit for hours, yet the terrible burden lingered on in his soul, a burden with a pale face and a playful, affectionate glance. Eventually he would get up and make his way to the dark, winding backstreets of the city, where the drunken flickering of red streetlamps through their broken glass illuminates the filthy cobblestones before sinking in the shimmering, foul-smelling puddles. At tables where sailors and their sweethearts carouse and peals of hoarse laughter drown out swearing and women’s tears, he, too, would sit himself down, drink wine, watch and listen as the terrible burden sank lower, while the face of the girl with chestnut hair drowned in clouds of acrid tobacco smoke.
High above, the night would drag slowly on, the stars would describe a semicircle stretching from east to west, and the rosy dawn would draw its sleepy face up to the broken, purblind windows of the tavern. The surrounding hum would grow quieter, the intoxicated bodies slump lower over the tables, and disheveled russet heads rest on the shoulders of their sweethearts. Whereas he felt estranged from his body, as though his head were living separately from the rest, casting crumbs of consciousness into the pale half-light.
Or else he would go to restaurants, where beautiful glittering mirrors tirelessly imitated the movements of a gray man with a youthful tanned face. On top of the little marble tables were virgin-white tablecloths, their snowy folds gleaming; a blush of fruit turned crystal bowls damask, and a fiery sea of bright light punctuated the scene, glimmering and floating amid the sound of wanton melodies. Women wearing enormous gaily colored hats and brazen smiles tottered around, while those in black kissed their hands, their red lips, their full shoulders, intoxicated and aquiver with delight.
And again the sleepy dawn would draw its rosy face up to the frosted, patterned windows, shrouding the peoples’ faces in waxen, deathly shadows. In the light of the dawning day, they looked like ghosts, fragments of dreams, freakish and pitiful. The last gold would glitter; the last customers—shirtfronts crumpled and hats askew—would settle up and leave, while he just sat there, and the dawning day seemed empty to him, empty and unwanted, like the bottles standing on the table. His every breath was suffering, and his anguish an act of prayer.
IV.
Five years have passed since then.
Five years since the day when he embraced her for the first time and said: “May I hold you in my arms?” Five years.
He had emerged from the fortress gray. During the three years he spent inside, he had received no letter, no word of greeting, nothing. He had been charged with crimes against the state, and not a single shred of news about her came to set his heart alight. His gaolers cared nothing for his suffering; they were serving the fatherland.
Later he was always afraid to remember what his life had been like during those three years, and with the terror of one condemned to die, he would leap out
of his bed whenever he dreamed that he was again behind bars. He remembered only daydreaming forlornly of the bodily torture that had existed back in the good old days, and how he had lamented that his abused, bloodied body could not buy a meeting with her. Such things had once been possible—back in those good old days.
After he was acquitted and released, he began to look for her. The enormity of the task was no impediment to him. But all trace of her had vanished, and nobody could tell him where she was. Among the figures who populated his world, bonds and acquaintances were erratic, like the very lives of the people themselves. Some came along and disappeared, then more arrived before vanishing again without trace amid the noise and cold of life. They disappeared like the morning dew.
But persistently, relentlessly, as a martyr would death, as a scholar would a great idea, he searched for her, day after day, month after month, journeying from one town to the next, across borders, everywhere he might expect to find her. But that person, that woman, was missing.
He asked for her everywhere, in guesthouses, hotels, registry offices, and clubs, in libraries and unions. Waiters, kellners, garçons, and cicerones would politely hear him out as he asked, in fear and anguish, feigning calm and aloofness while limb and bone strained in anticipation of their answer:
“Tell me, has Vera N—stayed here? From Russia? She’s a Russian, from Russia.”
A worried, businesslike expression would flash across the faces of the people listening to him. They would dash off somewhere, rifle through large books with gilt edging, through stacks of paper and registers, and every time, running their eyes over his tanned face and gray hair, they would declare in a guiltily fawning voice:
“Vera N—? No, sir. We’ve had no lady by that name.”
The more he asked, the more difficult it became to utter this sacred name to these indifferent strangers. And so it began to seem that his secret was a secret no more, that it had crawled out from its hiding place and, like a silent shadow, was creeping about the earth, from mouth to mouth, mind to mind, broadcasting his torment, his love. He looked at his face in the mirror with loathing, cursing its exhausted, morose features, mistrusting them, as a miser does his servants who guard a treasure. It would have been easier for him to bear had his face been turned into a stone mask; then no muscle, no trembling eyelid would have betrayed his anguish. It was all the more difficult for him to inquire about her when laughter seemed to quiver in the eyes of those answering him, when they seemed to know his secret and went carrying it from house to house, snatching at it with their grubby fingers—his treasure, his love, his prayer.
Fandango and Other Stories Page 7