Envy

by Yuri Olesha

  I’ll do everything to make sure this dream comes true. You aren’t going to exploit Valya.

  Goodbye, Comrade Babichev.

  How could I have played such a demeaning role for a whole month? I’m never coming back to you. Wait. Maybe your first fool will come back. Give him my regards. What happiness that I won’t have to go back to you anymore!

  Every time my self-esteem suffers from anything, I know that immediately, by association, I’ll remember one of the evenings spent near your desk. What upsetting visions!

  It’s evening. You’re at your desk. You exude self-rapture. “I’m working”—these rays crackle. “Do you hear, Kavalerov? I’m working, don’t bother me … tss … philistine.”

  And in the morning praise pours out of all different mouths: “A big man! An amazing man! A perfect individual—Andrei Petrovich Babichev!”

  But you see, while the lickspittles were singing hymns to you, while smugness was puffing you up, a man was living by your side who nobody ever noticed or bothered to ask his opinion; a man was living there who followed your every movement, studying you, observing you, not from below, not servilely, but like a man, calmly, and he reached the conclusion that you’re just a big-shot official—and that’s all, a mediocre individual elevated to an enviable rank due to purely external circumstances.

  It’s no good playing the fool.

  That’s all I have to say.

  You wanted to make me your jester, but I became your enemy. “Who are you fighting, you scoundrel?” you shouted at your brother. I don’t know who you had in mind—yourself, your party, your factories, the stores, the apiaries—I don’t know. But I’m fighting you: the most ordinary of aristocrats, an egoist, a voluptuary, a numskull confident that everything’s going to work out for the best. I’m fighting for your brother, for the girl you’ve deceived, for the tenderness, the pathos, the individual, the names as disturbing as “Ophelia,” everything that you’re trying to crush, you remarkable man.

  My regards to Solomon Shapiro.

  12

  THE CLEANING lady let me in. Babichev was gone. The customary glass of milk had been drunk and stood cloudy on the table. Next to it was a saucer and a cookie that looked like Hebrew letters.

  Human life is insignificant. What’s ominous is the movement of the spheres. When I settled here, a sun speck sat on the doorjamb at two in the afternoon. Thirty-six days passed. The speck jumped to the next room. The earth had completed another leg of its journey. The little sun speck, a child’s plaything, reminds us of eternity.

  I went out on the balcony.

  On the street corner a cluster of people stood listening to the church bells ringing. The ringing was coming from a church I couldn’t see from the balcony. This church was famous for its bell ringer. Idlers craned their necks. They could see the famous bell ringer at work.

  Once I stood on the corner for a good hour. I could see inside the bell tower through the gaps in the arch. There, in the sooty darkness you find in attics, amid atticky beams wrapped in spiderwebs, the bell ringer was in a frenzy. Twenty bells were tearing him to pieces. Like a coachman, he was leaning back, dropping his head back, maybe even whooping. He was twisting at his waist, in the middle of a gloomy web of ropes, first pausing, then hanging from outstretched arms, then rushing into a corner, elbowing his way through the web’s whole blueprint—an enigmatic musician, indistinguishable, dark, even ugly, like Quasimodo.

  (Actually, the distance made him that frightening. If you like you could say: a little man wielding crockery and cymbals. You could call the ringing from the famous bell tower a combination of restaurant and train station clatter.)

  I listened from the balcony.

  “Tom-vir-lee-lee! Tom-vir-lee-lee! Tom-vir-lee-lee!”

  Tom. Virleelee. Some Tom Virleelee was hovering in the air:

  Tom Virleelee,

  Tom with a knapsack,

  Young Tom Virleelee!

  The disheveled bell-ringer transposed many of my mornings into music. Tom is the striking of the big bell, a big cauldron; Virleelee are the little cymbals.

  Tom Virleelee pierced straight through me on one of the fine mornings I greeted under this roof. A musical phrase transformed into a verbal one. I had a vivid picture of this Tom.

  A youth looking out over a city. A youth unknown to all draws near, sees the city, which is sleeping and suspects nothing. The morning fog is just now dispersing. The town swirls in the valley like a flickering gray cloud. Tom Virleelee, smiling and pressing his hand to his heart, looks down at the town, searching in its childish outlines for familiar scenes.

  A knapsack on the youth’s back.

  He’s going to do it all.

  He’s the youthful arrogance, the very secret spirit of proud dreams.

  The days will pass, and soon (the sun speck won’t have skipped from the doorjamb to the next room very many times) little boys, themselves dreaming of walking like that with a knapsack on their back through the outskirts of a town, the outskirts of fame, will sing a song about a man who did everything he wanted to do:

  Tom Virleelee,

  Tom with a knapsack,

  Young Tom Virleelee!

  Thus, the ringing of an ordinary Moscow church was transformed inside me, in my romantic, obviously Western European dream.

  I was going to leave my letter on the desk, gather my belongings (in a knapsack?), and leave. The letter, folded into a square, I put on the glass cover, next to the portrait of someone I considered my comrade in misfortune.

  Someone knocked at the door. Was it he?

  I opened it.

  In the doorway, holding a knapsack in his hand and smiling gaily (a Japanese smile), exactly as if he had seen through the door the dear friend cherished in his dreams, stood a shy young man who reminded me of Valya: Tom Virleelee.

  This was the young troublemaker, Volodya Makarov. He looked at me in surprise, then quickly scanned the room. Several times his gaze returned to the sofa, down under the sofa, where my low boots peeped out.

  “Hullo!” I greeted him.

  He walked toward the sofa, sat down, paused a moment, then headed for the bedroom, spent some time in there, returned, and stopping next to the flamingo vase, asked me, “Where’s Andrei Petrovich? At the office?”

  “I can’t swear to it. Andrei Petrovich will be back this evening. He may bring some new fool with him. You’re the first, I’m the second, he’ll be the third. Or were there other fools before you? Or maybe he’ll bring the girl with him.”

  “Who?” asked Tom Virleelee. “What’s that?” he asked, frowning in incomprehension. His temples tensed.

  He sat back down on the sofa. My low boots under the sofa bothered him. You could tell. He was not averse to touching them with the back of his boot.

  “Why did you come back?” I asked. “Why the hell did you come back? Your role and mine are over. Now he’s interested in someone else. He’s debauching a girl. His niece, Valya. Get it? Get out of here. Listen to me!”

  I rushed at him. He sat motionless.

  “Listen to me! Do what I did! Tell him the whole truth … Here”—I snatched the letter from the desk—“here’s the letter I wrote him …”

  He held me at arm’s length. His knapsack lay familiarly in the corner by the sofa. He walked over to the telephone and called the office.

  My belongings stayed the way they were, uncollected.

  I turned and ran.

  13

  I KEPT the letter. I’d decided to destroy it. The soccer player was living with him like a son. From the way his knapsack arranged itself in the corner, from the way he surveyed the room, picked up the telephone receiver, and called the number, you could tell he’d been there a long time, he was his own man here. This house was his. An ill-spent night had affected me. I hadn’t written what I’d meant to write. Babichev wouldn’t have understood my indignation. He would have written it off as envy. He would have thought I envied Volodya.

  It’s a g
ood thing I kept the letter.

  Otherwise I’d have fired a blank.

  I was wrong in thinking that Volodya was his fool and entertainer. Consequently, in my letter I shouldn’t have taken him under my wing. On the contrary. Now that I’d met him, I’d seen his arrogance. Babichev was harboring someone exactly like himself. He’d end up the same pompous, blind man.

  His look said: Excuse me, you’re wrong. You’re the sponger. I have every right. I’m the rightful heir.

  I was sitting on a bench. And here I discovered something terrible.

  It turned out to be the wrong rectangle—mine was larger. This wasn’t my letter. Mine was still there. In my haste I’d grabbed another. Here it was:

  My dear Andrei Petrovich!

  Greetings, greetings! Are you in good health? Aren’t you suffocating with your new lodger? Hasn’t Ivan Petrovich threatened you with Ophelia? Watch out:—your Kavalerov and Ivan Petrovich—they’re both going to get drunk and do you in. Watch out, take care. You’re too softhearted, too easily hurt, so watch out …

  Since when did you become so trusting? You let any bum into your house. Tell him to get the hell out! The very next day you could say, “Well, you’ve had a nice rest, young man. Good-bye!” Just think: tenderness! When I read your letter about how you’d been thinking about me and that made you feel sorry for the drunk by the wall, that you’d picked him up and brought him home for my sake, because something bad might happen to me somewhere, as they say, and I might be lying around like that. As soon as I read that I thought it was funny and perplexing. It sounded like Ivan Petrovich, not you.

  So it was just as I’d thought. You took in this slyboots and then you lost your head, of course. You didn’t know what to do with him. And you felt funny asking him to leave, so what were you to do? Who the hell knows! Right? You see, I’m lecturing you. It’s because of the kind of work you do, it makes you oversensitive: the fruits, herbs, bees, calves, all of that. Whereas I’m a man of industry. You laugh, you laugh, Andrei Petrovich! You’re always laughing at me. You see, I’m the new generation.

  What’s going to happen now? Well, I’m coming back—and what’s going to happen with your eccentric? What if your eccentric suddenly bursts into tears and doesn’t want to leave the sofa? You’re going to feel sorry for him. Yes, I’m jealous. I’ll smash his ugly face and drive him out. You’re so nice—oh, you holler, bang your fist, and swagger, but when it comes to taking action—then you take pity. If not for me, Valya would still be suffering with Ivan Petrovich! How are you keeping her there? She hasn’t gone back, has she? You know yourself, Ivan Petrovich is a wily guy, he’ll figure out how to insinuate himself, he’s cheap goods, a charlatan. Right? So don’t go feeling sorry for him.

  Try this: put him in a clinic. He’ll run away. Or suggest your Kavalerov go to the clinic! He’ll be insulted.

  Well, all right. Don’t be angry. After all, your very words were: You teach me, Volodya, and I’ll teach you. So here we are teaching each other.

  I’ll be back soon. In a few days. My papa sends his regards. Farewell, Murom-town! At night, when I’m walking, then I realize there isn’t any town at all, actually, just factories. But the town—what’s that? That’s easy. It’s what’s left over after you take away the factories. Everything is for them, for their sake. The workshops above all. At night in the town the dark is positively Egyptian, gloomy, there are spirits here, you know. But on the outskirts, in the field, the factory lights burn and shine. It’s a holiday!

  But in town (I saw), a calf ran after a police inspector, after his briefcase (he was carrying it under his wing). Running, smacking its lips, chewing, oh well, the calf wanted it … This picture: a hedge, a puddle, the inspector is striding along in his red cap, fittingly, and the calf is aiming for his briefcase. Contradictions, you see.

  I don’t like those calves. I’m a man-machine. You won’t recognize me. I’ve turned into a machine. If I haven’t turned into one yet, I want to. Machines here are our beasts! Purebred! Remarkably indifferent, proud machines. Not like in your sausage factories. It’s so primitive. You just cut up calves. I want to be a machine. I want to consult with you. I want to be proud of my work, proud because I work. In order to be indifferent, you see, toward everything that’s not work! What I envy is the machine. There’s something! Why am I worse than the machine? We invented it, we created it, but it turned out to be much fiercer than we are. Give it its way, and it’s off! It calculates so there’s not a single extra figure. I want to be like that. You see, Andrei Petrovich—so that there’s not a single extra figure. How I wish I could talk to you!

  I imitate you to my utmost. I even chomp and chew like you do.

  So many times I’ve thought about how lucky I’ve been! You lifted me up, Andrei Petrovich! Not all Komsomolers live like this. And I live with you, the wisest, most amazing individual. Anyone would pay dearly to live like that. You see, I know that lots of people envy me. Thank you, Andrei Petrovich. You mustn’t laugh—I’m expressing my love, so to speak. A machine, you’ll say, and he’s expressing love. Right? No, I’m telling the truth: I’m going to be a machine.

  How are things? Is the Two Bits under construction? Has anything caved in? How’s Heat and Power? Did you get it set up? What about Kampfer?

  And what’s happening at home? Is the citizen-stranger still sleeping on my nice sofa? He’s going to leave lice. Remember how they dragged me back from soccer? I can still feel it. Remember, they carried me in? And you got scared, Andrei Petrovich? You were scared, weren’t you, Andrei Petrovich? You’re my worrywart, you know. I’m lying on the sofa; my head feels as heavy as a train track. I’m watching you—you’re at your desk, under the green lampshade, writing. I’m watching you—and suddenly you look at me and I shut my eyes right away, like with Mama!

  About soccer, by the way. I’m going to be playing the Germans for the Moscow team. And maybe, if it’s not Shukhov—on the USSR team. Beautiful!

  How’s Valya? Of course we’re getting married! In four years. You laugh, you say we won’t hold out. But I’m telling you here and now: in four years. Yes, I’m going to be the Edison of my era. The first time we kiss is going to be when you open your Two Bits. Yes. You don’t believe it? She and I have a pact. You don’t know anything. On the Two Bits opening day we’re going to kiss on the podium to the music.

  You’d better not forget me, Andrei Petrovich. I’m going to show up out of the blue and I’ll find out that this Kavalerov is your best friend, I’m forgotten, and he’s taken my place with you. He does calisthenics with you, goes to the construction site. What of it? But maybe he’s turned out to be a remarkable fellow, much nicer than me. Maybe you and he have gotten to be friends, and I, the Edison of the new age, will have to get the hell out. Maybe you and he are sitting, with Ivan Petrovich and Valya, too, and laughing at me. Have your Kavalerov and Valya gotten married? Tell the truth. Then I’ll kill you, Andrei Petrovich. Word of honor. For betraying our conversations, our plans. Get it?

  Well, I’m all written out, I’m bothering a busy man. So there’s not one extra figure—or I’ll tell myself where to get off. This is because of being apart—right? Well, goodbye, my dear and much-esteemed man, goodbye. We’ll be seeing each other soon.

  14

  A HUGE cloud with the outline of South America loomed over the city. The cloud itself was luminous, but the shadow it cast was ominous. The shadow was moving astronomically slowly toward Babichev’s street.

  Anyone who has ever stepped into the mouth of that street and gone against the current of people has seen the movement of the shadow, has started to black out. It’s pulled the ground out from under their feet. It’s like walking across a spinning sphere.

  I’ve gone through it at their side.

  The balcony hung in midair. On the railing lay a jacket. The ringing from the church had stopped. I took a loiterer’s place on the corner. A young man appeared on the balcony. He was amazed how overcast it was. He lifted his hea
d and looked out, leaning over the railing.

  A staircase, a door. I knocked. My lapel was twitching from the pounding of my heart. I’d come to fight.

  They let me in. Whoever opened the door stood back, pulling the door in. And the first thing I saw was Andrei Babichev. Andrei Babichev was standing in the middle of the room, his legs planted wide enough to let an army of Lilliputians pass between them. His hands were thrust into his trouser pockets. His jacket was unbuttoned and swept back. The hems on both sides, pushed back because his hands were in his pockets, looked like festoons. His stance said: What now?

  He was all I saw. Volodya Makarov was all I heard.

  I took a step toward Babichev. It was raining.

  I was just about to fall to my knees in front of him. “Don’t drive me away! Andrei Petrovich, don’t drive me away! I’ve figured it all out. Believe in me like you believe in Volodya. Believe in me: I’m young, too, I’m going to be the Edison of the new era, too, I’m going to idolize you, too! How could I have missed it, how could I have been so blind not to do everything I could to make you like me! Forgive me, let me in, give me four years’ time …”

  But I didn’t fall to my knees. I asked snidely, “Why aren’t you at work?”

  “Get the hell out of here!” I heard in reply.

  He replied instantly, as if it had all been prearranged between us. But his reply reached my consciousness after a brief delay.

  Something extraordinary happened.

  It was raining. Maybe there was lightning.

  I don’t want to speak figuratively. I want to speak plainly. I once read The Atmosphere by Camille Flammarion. (What a planetary name! Flammarion—it’s a star itself!) He describes spherical lightning and its amazing effect: a full, smooth sphere silently rolls around a building, filling it with blinding light … Oh, I haven’t the least intention of resorting to banal comparisons. But the cloud was suspicious. Its shadow was advancing like in a dream. It was raining. A window was open in the bedroom. You shouldn’t leave windows open in a storm! The draft!