Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida (Penguin Classics)

by Chandler, Robert

  He had already sold for a trifle two lobsters which he had caught in the night, and which were rustling in the apron of the cook of that very same hotel where the family from San Francisco had spent the night. And now Lorenzo could stand calmly till evening, with a majestic air showing off his rags and gazing round, holding his clay pipe with its long reed mouthpiece in his hand, and letting his scarlet bonnet slip over one ear. For as a matter of fact he received a salary from the little town, from the commune which found it profitable to pay him to stand about and make a picturesque figure – as everybody knows… Down the precipices of Monte Solaro, down the stony little stairs cut in the rock of the old Phoenician road came two Abruzzi mountaineers, descending from Anacapri. One carried a bagpipe under his leather cloak, a large goatskin with two little pipes; the other had a sort of wooden flute. They descended, and the whole land, joyous, was sunny beneath them. They saw the rocky, heaving shoulder of the island, which lay almost entirely at their feet, swimming in the fairy blueness of the water. Shining morning vapours rose over the sea to the east, under a dazzling sun which already burned hot as it rose higher and higher; and there, far off, the dimly cerulean masses of Italy, of her near and far mountains, still wavered blue as if in the world’s morning, in a beauty no words can express… Halfway down the descent the pipers slackened their pace. Above the road, in a grotto of the rocky face of Monte Solaro stood the Mother of God, the sun full upon her, giving her a splendour of snow-white and blue raiment, and royal crown rusty from all weathers. Meek and merciful, she raised her eyes to heaven, to the eternal and blessed mansions of her thrice-holy Son. The pipers bared their heads, put their pipes to their lips: and there streamed forth naïve and meekly joyous praises to the sun, to the morning, to Her, immaculate, who would intercede for all who suffer in this malicious and lovely world, and to Him, born of Her womb among the caves of Bethlehem, in a lowly shepherd’s hut, in the far Judean land…

  And the body of the dead old man from San Francisco was returning home, to its grave, to the shores of the New World. Having been subjected to many humiliations, much human neglect, after a week’s wandering from one warehouse to another, it was carried at last on to the same renowned vessel which so short a time ago, and with such honour had borne him living to the Old World. But now he was to be hidden far from the knowledge of the voyagers. Closed in a tar-coated coffin, he was lowered deep into the vessel’s dark hold. And again, again the ship set out on the long voyage. She passed at night near Capri, and to those who were looking out from the island, sad seemed the lights of the ship slowly hiding themselves in the sea’s darkness. But there aboard the liner, in the bright halls shining with lights and marble, gay dancing filled the evening, as usual…

  The second evening, and the third evening, still they danced, amid a storm that swept over the ocean, booming like a funeral service, rolling up mountains of mourning darkness silvered with foam. Through the snow the numerous fiery eyes of the ship were hardly visible to the Devil who watched from the rocks of Gibraltar, from the stony gateway of two worlds, peering after the vessel as she disappeared into the night and storm. The Devil was huge as a cliff. But huger still was the liner, many storeyed, many funnelled, created by the presumption of the New Man with the old heart. The blizzard smote the rigging and the funnels, and whitened the ship with snow, but she was enduring, firm, majestic – and horrible. On the topmost deck rose lonely among the snowy whirlwind the cosy and dim quarters where lay the heavy master of the ship, he who was like a pagan idol, sunk now in a light, uneasy slumber. Through his sleep he heard the sombre howl and furious screechings of the siren, muffled by the blizzard. But again he reassured himself by the nearness of that which stood behind his wall, and was in the last resort incomprehensible to him; by the large, apparently armoured cabin which was now and then filled with a mysterious rumbling, throbbing, and crackling of blue fires that flared up explosive around the pale face of the telegraphist who, with a metal hoop fixed on his head, was eagerly straining to catch the dim voices of vessels which spoke to him from hundreds of miles away. In the depths, in the underwater womb of the Atlantis, steel glimmered and steam wheezed, and huge masses of machinery and thousand-ton boilers dripped with water and oil, as the motion of the ship was steadily cooked in this vast kitchen heated by hellish furnaces from beneath. Here bubbled in their awful concentration the powers which were being transmitted to the keel, down an infinitely long round tunnel lit up and brilliant like a gigantic gun-barrel, along which slowly, with a regularity crushing to the human soul, revolved a gigantic shaft, precisely like a living monster coiling and uncoiling its endless length down the tunnel, sliding on its bed of oil. The middle of the Atlantis, the warm, luxurious cabins, dining rooms, halls, shed light and joy, buzzed with the chatter of an elegant crowd, was fragrant with fresh flowers, and quivered with the sounds of a string orchestra. And again amid that crowd, amid the brilliance of lights, silks, diamonds, and bare feminine shoulders, a slim and supple pair of hired lovers painfully writhed and at moments convulsively clashed. A sinfully discreet, pretty girl with lowered lashes and hair innocently dressed, and a tallish young man with black hair looking as if it were glued on, pale with powder, and wearing the most elegant patent-leather shoes and a narrow, long-tailed dress coat, a beau resembling an enormous leech. And no one knew that this couple had long since grown weary of shamly tormenting themselves with their beatific love-tortures, to the sound of bawdy-sad music; nor did anyone know of that thing which lay deep, deep below at the very bottom of the dark hold, near the gloomy and sultry bowels of the ship that was so gravely overcoming the darkness, the ocean, the blizzard…

  First published in 1916

  Translated by S. S. Koteliansky, D. H. Lawrence and Leonard Woolf

  IN PARIS

  When he had his hat on – walking down the street or standing in the metro – and you couldn’t see the silver in his short, reddish hair, it was possible to imagine, given the freshness of his thin shaven face and the upright bearing of this tall thin figure in a long waterproof coat, that he was no more than forty. But his bright eyes had a look of dry sorrow, and he spoke and acted like a man who has been through a great deal. At one time he had rented a farm in Provence; he had heard any number of caustic Provençal jokes and he liked to drop them now and again, with a little smile, into his always clipped speech. Many people knew that his wife had left him long ago, back in Constantinople, and that ever since then he had lived with a wound in his soul. The secret of this wound was never revealed to anyone, but sometimes he couldn’t help hinting at it, joking sourly if someone brought up the subject of women: ‘Rien n’est plus difficile que de reconnaître un bon melon et une femme de bien.’1

  One damp, late autumn Paris evening he went into a small Russian restaurant on one of the dark sidestreets near Passy. Attached to the restaurant was some kind of a delicatessen, and he had inadvertently paused outside its wide window. On the shelf inside were coneshaped pink bottles of rowanberry vodka and squat yellow bottles of zubrovka,2 a plate of stale fried meat pasties, a plate of greying meat rissoles, a box of halva and a tin of sprats; further back was a counter of hors d’oeuvres, and behind that – the unfriendly Russian face of the woman who owned the establishment. There was light in the shop and, standing on the dark sidestreet with its cold, greasy-looking cobblestones, he felt drawn to this light. He entered, nodded to the owner and made his way through to a more dimly lit room adjoining the shop; this was still empty and the paper tablecloths looked clean and white. There he unhurriedly hung his grey hat and long coat on the horns of a coat-stand, sat down at a little table in the far corner and, absentmindedly rubbing together hands covered in reddish hair, began to read an endless list of hors d’oeuvres and main dishes, partly typed and partly written in violet ink which had smudged on the greasy paper. Suddenly a light went on in his corner, and he saw a woman of about thirty, with a look of distant politeness, coming towards him; she had black eyes and black hair parted
in the centre, and she was wearing a white, lace-bordered apron over a black dress.

  ‘Bonsoir, monsieur,’ she said pleasantly.

  She looked so pretty that he felt flustered. ‘Bonsoir – but you’re Russian, aren’t you?’ he answered awkwardly.

  ‘Yes, I am. I’m sorry – I’ve got used to speaking French to our customers.’

  ‘Oh – do you get a lot of French people here?’

  ‘Quite a lot, and you can be sure they’ll order zubrovka, bliny and even borsch. Have you decided what you want?’

  ‘No, there’s so much to choose from. Tell me what you recommend!’

  In a mechanical tone she began listing the dishes, ‘Today we have sailor’s cabbage soup, Cossack meatballs… Then there are veal chops or, if you like, you could have a shashlyk à la Kars3…’

  ‘Splendid. I’ll have cabbage soup, please, and then the meatballs.’

  She took the little pad that hung from her belt and wrote on it with a pencil stub. Her hands were very white, aristocratic looking. Her dress was a little worn, but clearly from a good shop.

  ‘Would you like some vodka?’

  ‘I’d love some. It’s horribly raw out there.’

  ‘What would you like with the vodka? There’s some wonderful Danube herring, our red caviar’s only just come in, we’ve got lightly pickled gherkins…’

  He looked at her again: the white lacy apron looked good against her black dress, and beneath the dress he could make out the fine breasts of a strong young woman. She had no lipstick on her full, fresh lips, her black hair was coiled into a simple knot, but her white hands looked well cared for, the fingernails shining and slightly pink, obviously manicured.

  ‘What would I like to start with?’ he said with a smile. ‘I’ll just have the herring, if that’s all right, with some boiled potato.’

  ‘What wine would you like?’

  ‘Red. Just your ordinary house wine.’

  She noted this down on her pad and brought over a carafe of water from another table. He shook his head: ‘No, merci, I never drink water nor do I add water to wine. L’eau gâte le vin comme la charrette le chemin et la femme – l’âme.’4

  ‘A fine opinion you have of us,’ she observed calmly and went off for the vodka and herring. He followed her with his eyes, noticing how gracefully she held herself and the way her black dress swayed as she walked. Yes, she was polite and professional, and all her movements and gestures were those of a dignified, unassuming waitress. But what about her shoes? How could she afford those good-quality, expensive shoes? There must be some well-to-do, middle-aged ami. It was a long time since he had felt as animated as he did this evening – thanks to her – and the thought of this ami was rather annoying. Yes, from year to year, from day to day, in our heart of hearts there’s only one thing we wait for – a meeting that will bring happiness and love. Really, this hope is all we live for – and how vain it is.

  He came back again the following day and sat down at his little table. She was busy at first, taking an order from two Frenchmen, repeating out loud what she was noting on her pad: ‘Caviar rouge, salade russe… Deux shashlyks.’

  She went out to the kitchen, came back in and went up to him with a slight smile of recognition.

  ‘Good evening. I’m glad you liked it here.’

  He stood up and said cheerfully: ‘Good evening to you! I like it here very much. And may I ask your name?’

  ‘Olga Aleksandrovna. And may I know yours?’

  ‘Nikolay Platonych.’

  They shook hands; then she raised her notepad.

  ‘We’ve got a wonderful soup today – rassolnik.5 Our chef’s quite remarkable, he used to work on the Grand Duke Aleksandr Mikhailovich’s yacht.’

  ‘Splendid, I’ll have the rassolnik… And have you been working here long?’

  ‘It’s my third month here.’

  ‘Where were you before?’

  ‘I was a saleswoman at Printemps.’

  ‘Staff cuts, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes, I’d have stayed if I could.’

  He realized with pleasure that he was probably wrong about the ami.

  ‘Are you married?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What does your husband do?’

  ‘He’s working in Yugoslavia. He was in the White Army. I imagine you were too?’

  ‘Yes, I fought in the Great War and in the Civil War.’

  ‘I knew straight away. And I imagine you’re a general,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘I was once. Now foreign publishing houses commission me to write histories of those wars… But how come you’re on your own?’

  ‘I just am.’

  The following evening he asked, ‘Do you like the cinema?’

  ‘It can be fun,’ she replied as she placed his borsch on the table.

  ‘They say there’s a very good film showing at the Etoile. Would you like to come and see it with me? You do have days off, I assume?’

  ‘Merci. I’m free on Mondays.’

  ‘Well then, let’s go on Monday. What’s today? Saturday? The day after tomorrow, then. Is that all right?’

  ‘Yes. So you won’t be coming in tomorrow?’

  ‘No, I’m going to see some people I know, out of town. But why do you ask?’

  ‘I’m not sure… Somehow it’ll feel strange not to be seeing you.’

  He looked gratefully at her and blushed. ‘Strange for me too. There are so few meetings in life that bring happiness.’ And he quickly changed the subject. ‘So, the day after tomorrow. Where shall we meet? Where do you live?’

  ‘Near the Motte-Piquet metro.’

  ‘Couldn’t be better – the same line as the Etoile. I’ll be waiting for you by the metro exit at 8.30 precisely.’

  ‘Merci.’

  He bowed with mock exaggeration and said, ‘C’est moi qui vous remercie.6 Put the children to bed,’ he said with a smile, wanting to know whether or not she had any children, ‘and jump on the metro.’

  ‘I haven’t been blessed with children, thank God,’ she said, and glided away with the plates.

  He felt moved as he walked home, but there was a frown on his face. ‘It’ll feel strange not to be seeing you…’ Perhaps this really was the providential meeting he had so long been waiting for. Only it was so late, so late. Le bon Dieu envoie toujours des culottes à ceux qui n’ont pas de derrière.7

  It was raining on Monday evening; the sky over Paris was a dark, murky red. Hoping she would go on to dine with him in Montparnasse, he skipped lunch, went into a café on the Chaussée de la Muette, had a ham sandwich and a glass of beer, lit a cigarette and got into a cab. When they reached the Etoile metro, he told the driver to stop and stepped out into the rain; the fat red-cheeked driver waited trustingly. The wind blowing from the station could have been from a Russian bathhouse; dense, dark crowds of people were opening umbrellas as they climbed the stairs; a vendor beside him was calling out the names of evening newspapers in a low staccato quack. Suddenly she was there, among the people coming up. He walked joyfully towards her.

  ‘Olga Aleksandrovna!’

  She was elegantly and fashionably dressed and her eyes, outlined in black, looked at him freely, not like in the restaurant, and she graciously extended one hand, a small umbrella dangling from the wrist, as she held up the hem of a long evening dress with the other hand. ‘An evening dress,’ he thought, feeling happier still, ‘so she’s expecting to go somewhere after the cinema too.’ Turning back the cuff of her glove, he kissed her white wrist.

  ‘You poor man, have you been waiting long?’

  ‘No, I’ve only just arrived. Let’s get into the taxi.’

  And with an excitement he had not felt for a long time he followed her into the cab, which was half-dark and smelt of damp cloth. The cab swayed as they turned a corner, a street lamp momentarily lit up the inside – and he instinctively put his arm round her waist, sensed the smell of powder from her cheek, saw her lar
ge knees under the black evening dress, the gleam of a black eye and her full lips with their red lipstick: this was a different woman.

  In the dark hall, watching a white, shining screen where droning aeroplanes with wide wings were flying at oblique angles and dropping into the clouds, they quietly began to talk.

  ‘Do you live on your own, or do you share with a girlfriend?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m on my own. It’s awful, really. The hotel’s clean and warm but, you know, it’s the kind of place men bring girls to for the night, or even for an hour or two… I’m on the fifth floor, there’s no lift, of course, and the red stair-carpet ends on the third floor… If it rains in the night, I feel such toskà. I open the window and there’s not a soul to be seen. The whole city’s quite dead. Just one solitary street lamp, somewhere or other down below in the rain… And you’re a bachelor, I suppose, and you live in a hotel too?’

  ‘I’ve got a small apartment in Passy. I live on my own too. I’ve been in Paris a long time. For a while I lived in Provence, I rented a farm there. I wanted to get away from everyone and everything, and to live by the work of my own hands – but that proved too much for me. I hired a Cossack to help out, but he turned out to be a drunkard – and a gloomy and frightening one at that. I tried breeding chickens and rabbits, but they all kept dying. Once I was nearly killed by a bite from my mule – an extremely vicious and clever beast… Worst of all was the utter loneliness. My wife left me when we were still in Constantinople.’

  ‘Are you joking?’

  ‘Not in the least. It’s a common enough story. Qui se marie par amour a bonnes nuits et mauvais jours.8 Though I didn’t have much of either myself. She left me during the second year of our marriage.’

  ‘Where is she now?’