by Yuri Olesha
“ … please forgive me for speaking so eloquently, does it seem too flowery to you? Is it hard for you? Thank you. Water? No, I don’t want water … I like speaking beautifully …
“ … we know that the grave of a Young Communist who has laid hands on himself is adorned, among the wreathes, with the curses of his comrades-in-arms as well. The man of the new world says: Suicide is a decadent act. But a man of the old world said: He had to kill himself to save his honor. Thus we are saying that the new man is teaching himself to despise the old-fashioned emotions glorified by poets and the muse of history herself. Well, there you have it. And I want to organize a final parade of these emotions.”
“Is this what you call the conspiracy of emotions?”
“Yes. This is the conspiracy of emotions, at the head of which I stand.”
“Go on.”
“Yes. I would like to organize a troupe around me … Are you following me?
“ … you see, one can allow that the old-fashioned emotions were beautiful. Examples of great love, let’s say, for a woman or the fatherland. Anything! You’ll agree that some of these memories stir us even today. Isn’t that true? So you see I would like …
“ … you know, sometimes an electric lightbulb goes out all of a sudden. Fizzles, you say. And this burned-out bulb, if you shake it, it flashes again and it’ll burn a little longer. Inside the bulb it’s a disaster. The wolfram filaments are breaking up, and when the fragments touch, life returns to the bulb. A brief, unnatural, undeniably doomed life—a fever, a too-bright incandescence, a flash. Then comes the darkness, life never returns, and in the darkness the dead, incinerated filaments are just going to rattle around. Are you following me? But the brief flash is magnificent!
“I want to shake …
“ … I want to shake the heart of a fizzled era. The lightbulb of the heart, so that the broken pieces touch …
“ … and produce a beautiful, momentary flash …
“ … I want to find representatives from there, from what you call the old world. The emotions I have in mind are jealousy, love for a woman, ambition. I want to find a foolish man to show you: Here, comrades, is a representative of that human condition known as foolishness.
“ … many personalities played out the comedy of the old world. The curtain has fallen. The characters still have to run to the front of the stage and sing the final couplets. I want to be the intermediary between them and the viewing audience. I’ll conduct the chorus and be last to leave the stage.
“ … I have been given the honor of conducting the last parade of old-fashioned human passions …
“ … through the eye slits of a mask, history is watching us with a flickering gaze. And I want to show it: Here is a man in love, here a man of ambition, here a traitor, here a reckless hero, here a loyal friend, here a prodigal son. Here they are, the bearers of great emotions that have now been deemed unimportant and vulgar. One last time, before they vanish, before they’re laughed at, let them show themselves in their full intensity.
“ … I’m listening to a strange conversation. They’re talking about a razor. About a madman who slit his own throat. At that point a woman’s name flits by. He didn’t die, the madman, they stitched up his neck, and he slit it again in the exact same place. Who is he? Show him, I need him, I’m searching for him. And I’m searching for her. Her, the demonic woman, and him, the tragic lover. But where am I to search for him? At Sklifossovsky Hospital? And her? Who is she? A shopgirl? A nepman’s wife?
“ … I’m having a very hard time finding my heroes …
“ … there are no heroes …
“ … I look into other people’s windows, go up other people’s stairs. From time to time I run after someone else’s smile, skipping, like a naturalist running after a butterfly! I feel like shouting: Stop! What’s blossoming on the bush that shaky and precipitate moth of your smile flew out of? What’s that bush’s emotion? Is it the pink dog rose of sorrow, or the currant of petty ambition? Stop! I need you …
“ … I want to gather a multitude around me. So that I have a choice and can choose the best, the most vivid of them, to form a shock troop, sort of … a shock troop of emotions.
“ … yes, this is a conspiracy, a peaceful uprising. A peaceful demonstration of emotions.
“ … let’s say somewhere I find a full-blooded, 100 percent man of ambition. I’ll say to him: Show yourself! Show those people who are wiping you out, show them what ambition is. Commit an act so that people can say, Oh, base ambition! Oh, what power ambition has! Or, let’s say, if I’m so fortunate as to find an ideally frivolous man. I’ll ask him, too: Show yourself, show the power of frivolity, make the spectators clap their hands.
“ … the geniuses of emotions have power over men’s souls. The genius of pride rules one soul, the genius of compassion another. I want to extract them, these demons, and release them in an arena.”
Investigator: “So, have you managed to find anyone yet?”
Ivan: “I’ve been calling and searching for a long time. It’s very hard. Maybe they don’t understand me. But I did find one.”
Investigator: “Who exactly?”
Ivan: “Are you interested in the emotion whose bearer he is or in his name?”
Investigator: “Both.”
Ivan: “Nikolai Kavalerov. Envier.”
4
THEY MOVED away from the mirror.
Now the two comics were walking together. One, shorter and fatter, was a step ahead of the other. This was a peculiarity of Ivan Babichev. As he conversed with his companion, he was constantly forced to look back. If he had a long sentence to say (and his sentences were never short), then frequently, as he strode, his face turned to his fellow traveler, he would bump into the people walking toward him. Then he would immediately tear off his bowler and dissolve in high-flown apologies. He was a courteous man. A welcoming smile never left his face.
The afternoon was rolling up the stalls. A gypsy in a dark blue vest, with painted cheeks and a beard, had hoisted a clean copper bowl on his shoulder. The afternoon was moving off on the gypsy’s shoulder. The bowl’s disk was bright and blind. The gypsy was walking slowly, the bowl was rocking gently, and the afternoon was spinning in its disk.
The fellow travelers watched it go.
And the disk set, like the sun. The day was done.
The fellow travelers immediately went into a beer stand.
Kavalerov told Ivan about how he had been driven out of his own home by an important man. He didn’t name names. Ivan told him about the same thing. He, too, had been driven out by an important man.
“And you probably know him. Everyone knows him. It’s my brother, Andrei Petrovich Babichev. Heard of him?”
Kavalerov blushed and looked down. He made no reply.
“In this way, our destiny is similar, and we should be friends,” said Ivan, beaming. “And I like the name Kavalerov: it’s highfalutin and low-down.”
Kavalerov thought, “I’m highfalutin and low-down, too.”
“Marvelous beer,” exclaimed Ivan. “The Poles say, ‘She has beer-colored eyes.’ Nice, isn’t it?
“ … but the main thing is that this famous man, my brother, stole my daughter from me …
“ … I’ll make my brother pay.
“ … he stole my daughter from me. Well, he didn’t literally steal her, naturally, don’t make such big eyes, Kavalerov. And it wouldn’t do you any harm to make your nose smaller, either. With a fat nose you have to be famous, like a hero, to be as happy as a common philistine. He exerted his moral influence on her. But can you sue him for that? Go to the prosecutor? Huh? She left me. I don’t even blame Andrei as much as that swine who lives with him.”
He was talking about Volodya.
Kavalerov’s big toes were wiggling from embarrassment.
“ … that whippersnapper ruined my life. Oh, if only they’d kicked out his kidneys in soccer. Andrei listens to everything he says. He—that whippe
rsnapper, you see—is the new man! That whippersnapper said Valya is unhappy because I, her father, am insane and that (the swine!) I am systematically driving her crazy. The swine! They ganged up to convince her. And Valya ran away. Some girlfriend took her in. I cursed that girlfriend. I said I wished her gullet and her gut would change places. Can you picture that? They’re a bunch of numskulls …
“ … woman was the best, purest, most wonderful light of our culture. I sought a being of the female sex. I sought a kind of creature who combined all the feminine qualities. I sought the ovary of feminine qualities. The feminine was the glory of the old era. I wanted to shine like that feminine principle. We’re dying, Kavalerov. I wanted to carry woman over my head like a torch. I thought that woman would die out along with our era. The millennia are like a cesspool. Floundering in the cesspool are machines, pieces of iron, tinplate, screws, springs … A dark and gloomy cesspool. And glowing in the cesspool are rotten stumps, phosphorescent mushrooms—fungi. These are our emotions! This is all that’s left of our emotions, from the flourishing of our souls. The new man comes up to the cesspool, tests it, climbs in, picks out what he needs—a piece of a machinery will come in handy, a nice wrench—and tramples the rotten stump underfoot, crushes it. I dreamed of finding a woman who could flourish with unprecedented emotion in this cesspool. The miraculous blossoming of a fern. So that the new man who comes to steal our iron would take fright, pull his hand back, and shut his eyes, blinded by the light of what had seemed to him a rotten stump.
“ … I found such a being. Right beside me. Valya. I thought Valya would shine over the dying era, light its way to the great graveyard. But I was wrong. She flitted away. She abandoned the tombstone of the old era. I thought woman was ours, that tenderness and love were only ours—but you see … I was wrong. And so I wander, the last dreamer on earth, along the edges of the cesspool, like a wounded bat …”
Kavalerov thought: “I’ll tear Valya away from them.” He felt like saying he had witnessed the incident in the lane where the garden bloomed. But for some reason he refrained.
“Our fates are similar,” Ivan continued. “Give me your hand. I greet you. I’m very glad to see you, young man. Let’s have a toast. So, you were driven out, Kavalerov? Tell me all about it. Actually, you already did. A very important man showed you the door? You don’t want to name names? Well, all right. You hate this man very much.”
Kavalerov nodded.
“Ah, how understandable I find all this, my good man! You, insofar as I’ve understood you, have had a caddish trick played on you by a powerful man. Don’t interrupt me. You have come to despise a man recognized by all. You, of course, think that he has insulted you. Don’t interrupt me. Drink.
“ … you’re certain that he’s keeping you from making something of yourself, that he stole what was rightfully yours, that he reigns where, in your opinion, you should. And you’re furious …”
An orchestra hovered in the smoke. The violinist’s pale face was resting on his violin.
“The violin looks like the violinist himself,” said Ivan. “It’s a little violinist in a wooden tailcoat. Hear it? The wood’s singing. Do you hear the wood’s voice? The wood in an orchestra sings in different voices. But how miserably they play! God, how miserably they play!”
He turned around to face the musicians.
“Do you think that’s a drum there? Do you think that’s the drum playing its part? No, it’s the god of music pounding you with his fist.
“ … my friend, envy will swallow us up. We envy the coming era. If you like, we have here the envy of old age. We have here the envy of a human generation that has aged for the first time. Let’s talk about envy. Give us some more beer …”
They were sitting next to a large window.
It was raining again. It was evening. The town glistened as if it had been chiseled out of Cardiff coal. People looked in the window from Samoteka, pressing their noses up.
“ … yes, envy. Here a drama must unfold, one of those grandiose dramas in the theater of history that have inspired the lament, ecstasy, sympathy, and fury of mankind. Without even knowing it, you are a bearer of a historical mission. You are a clot, so to speak. A clot of envy in the dying era’s bloodstream. The dying era envies the era that’s coming to take its place.”
“What can I do?” asked Kavalerov.
“My dear, here you must resign yourself or else … create a scandal. Go out with a bang. Slam the door, as they say. That’s the most important part: go out with a bang. Leave a scar on history’s ugly face. Shine, damn it! They aren’t going to let you in anyway. Don’t give up without a fight … I want to tell you about an incident from my childhood.
“A gala had been arranged. Children acted out a play and performed a ballet on a stage built especially in a large drawing room. And a little girl … can you imagine her?—a very typical little girl, twelve years old, dainty feet, short dress, all pink, satin, and ruffles, well, you know, the whole shebang—with her chiffon and ribbons, she looked like the flower known as a snapdragon—a beauty, haughty, spoiled, shaking her curls—that’s the kind of girl who was dancing at this ball. She was a queen. She did whatever she wanted, everyone admired her, everything flowed from her and everything was drawn to her. She danced better than anyone, sang, leaped, thought up games. The best presents went to her, the best candies, flowers, oranges, and praises … I was thirteen, a schoolboy. She was outshining me. But meanwhile I, too, was used to ecstatic cries. I, too, had been spoiled by admiration. In my class I was first, the record holder. I couldn’t stand it. I caught her in the corridor and beat her, tore her ribbons, sent her curls flying, scratched her beautiful face. I grabbed her by the nape and rammed her forehead into a column a few times. At that moment I loved that girl more than life, I worshipped her—and hated her with every fiber of my being. By tearing up the beauty’s curls, I thought I would disgrace her, dispel her rosiness, her glow, I thought I would correct the mistake everyone had made. But that’s not what happened. The disgrace fell on me. I was driven out. However, my dear, they did talk about me all evening; and I did spoil the gala for them. They talked about me everywhere the little beauty appeared … Thus for the first time did I know envy. The horrible burning of envy. How hard it is to envy! Envy constricts your throat with a spasm, squeezes your eyes from their sockets. While I was tearing my victim to pieces there, in the corridor, tears rolled from my eyes, I was sobbing—and still I tore her exquisite clothing, trembling at the satin’s touch, which left a bitter taste on my teeth and lips. You know what satin is, the texture of satin—you know how touching it sends a shiver running down your spine, through your whole nervous system, the grimaces it elicits! So all the powers rose up against me in defense of the nasty little girl. The bitter taste, the poison hidden in the bushes and baskets, flowed from what had seemed so enchanting in the drawing room—from her dress, from the pink satin, so sweet to the eyes. I remember emitting these cries while meting out my punishment. I was probably whispering, ‘Here’s your revenge! Don’t try to outshine me! Don’t take what might have belonged to me … ’
“Have you been listening closely? I’m trying to draw an analogy. I have in mind the struggle between the eras. Naturally, at first glance the comparison will seem frivolous. But do you follow me? I’m talking about envy.”
The orchestra finished its number.
“Well, thank God,” said Ivan. “They’ve stopped. Look at the cello. It shone much less before they went after it. They tortured it for such a long time. Now it’s shining as if it were wet—a spanking new cello. You should write down my opinions, Kavalerov. I’m not talking—I’m chiseling my words in marble. Aren’t I?
“ … my dear, we were record holders, we were spoiled by our generation, too, we were used to being first there, too … at home … where at home? … There, in the dwindling era. Oh, how wonderful the rising world is, oh how the holiday they will not let us celebrate sparkles. Everything flows from this, the
new era, everything is drawn to it, it will get the best gifts and exclamations. I love it, this world that’s coming toward me, more than life, I worship it and hate it with every fiber of my being! I sob, tears gush from my eyes, but I want to poke my fingers in its clothes and rip. Don’t outshine me! Don’t take away what might have belonged to me.
“ … we have to take our revenge. Both you and I—there are thousands and thousands of us—we have to take our revenge. Kavalerov, enemies are not always windmills. Sometimes what you’d like to take for a windmill is an enemy, a conqueror bearing death and destruction. Your enemy, Kavalerov, is a real enemy. Take your revenge on him. Believe me, we’ll go out with a bang. We’ll take the young world down a peg. We weren’t born yesterday, either. We, too, have been history’s darlings.
“ … make people talk about you, Kavalerov. It’s clear that everything is on its way to wrack and ruin, everything has been predetermined, there’s no escape—you’re going to perish, fat-nose! Every minute the humiliations are going to multiply, every day your enemy is going to flourish like a pampered youth. We’re going to perish. That’s clear. So dress up your demise, dress it up in fireworks, tear the clothes off whoever is outshining you, say farewell in such a way that your ‘goodbye’ comes crashing down through the ages.”
Kavalerov thought, “He’s reading my mind.”
“Have you been insulted? Driven out?”
“I’ve been terribly insulted,” said Kavalerov hotly. “I’ve been humiliated for a long time.”
“Who insulted you? One of the era’s chosen?”
“Your brother,” Kavalerov wanted to shout, “the same one who insulted you.” But he held his tongue.
“You’re lucky. You know your conqueror’s face. You have a concrete enemy. So do I.”
“What should I do?”
“You’re lucky. You can combine revenge for yourself with revenge for the era that was mother to you.”
“What should I do?”