I Had Raised Dust: Selected Works

by Daniil Kharms

  YERMOLAYEV Save me. Oh. Save me. Oh. Let me breathe. Oh. Save... oh. Breathe...

  DOCTOR He's gone quiet. And he's not breathing. That means he's dead already. He has died, not finding on earth the answers to his questions. Yes, we physicians must comprehensively research the phenomenon of death.

  (1937)

  The Thing

  A mom, a dad, and the maid named Natasha, were sitting at the table, drinking.

  The dad was, undoubtingly, an alcoholic. Furthermore, even the mom was looking down on him. But that didn't prevent the dad from being a good man. He was smiling honestly while rocking in a chair. Maid Natasha had a lace apron and was extremely very shy. The dad was playing tricks with his beard, but maid Natasha was lowering her eyes shyly, showing, in that way, that she was ashamed.

  The mom, a tall woman with a big hairdo, spoke with a horselike voice. Her voice was spreading around the dining room and echoing back from the yard and other rooms.

  After the first drink, everybody was quiet for a moment while they were eating a sausage. A moment later, they all started talking again.

  Suddenly, completely unexpected, somebody knocked at the front door. Neither the dad, nor the mom nor the maid, Natasha, could guess who was knocking at the front door.

  -- How strange! -- said the dad. -- Who could that be?

  The mom looked at him with compassion and, even if it was not her turn, poured another glass, chugged it down and said:

  -- Strange.

  The dad did not swear, but also poured a glass, chugged it down and got up from the table.

  The dad was a short man. Completely opposite from the mom. The mom was a tall, plump woman with a voice like a horse, and the dad was, simply, her husband. And above all that, the dad had freckles.

  He approached the door in one step and said:

  -- Who is that?

  -- Me, -- said the voice behind the door.

  The door opened immediately, and into the room entered a maid, Natasha, all confused and blushing. Like a flower. Like a flower.

  The dad sat down.

  The mom had another drink.

  Maid Natasha, and the other one, the like-a-flower one, got very shy and blushed. The dad looked at them but he did not swear, instead he had another drink and so did the mom.

  The dad opened a can of crab pate to get the bad taste out of his mouth. Everybody was happy and they were eating until the morning. But the mom was quiet and she did not move from the chair. That was very impolite.

  When the dad was about to sing a song, something hit the window. The mom jumped up terrified and screamed that she could clearly see somebody looking through the window from the street. The others were convincing the mom that that was impossible, because they were on the third floor and nobody from the street could possibly look through the window, for that one would have to be a giant or Goliath.

  But the mom would not change her mind. Nothing in the world could convince her that nobody could have been looking through the window.

  They gave her another drink, in order to calm her down. The mom chugged it down. The dad, also, poured a glass and drank it.

  Natasha and the maid, the like-a-flower one, were sitting, looking down in confusion.

  -- I cannot be happy when somebody is looking at us through the window. -- the mom said.

  The dad was desperate, he did not know how to calm the mom down. So, he went down to the yard and tried to look through the window on the first floor. Of course, that was impossible. But that did not convince the mom. She did not even see that he couldn't reach the first floor window.

  Finally, confused by the situation, the dad run into the dining room and had two drinks in the row, giving one to the mom. The mom had her drink, and said that she was drinking for the sole reason that somebody was looking at them through the window.

  The dad spread his hands.

  -- Here, -- he said to the mom, and opened the window.

  A man with a dirty coat and a big knife in his hands tried to get in through the window. When the dad spotted him, he closed the window and said:

  -- Nobody is there.

  But, the man with a dirty coat was outside looking in the room through the window, and furthermore, he opened the window and got in.

  The mom was extremely disturbed by this. She started acting hysterically, and, after she had a drink that the dad gave her and ate a little mushroom, she calmed down.

  Soon the dad calmed down, too. Again everybody sat at the table and continued to drink.

  The dad took the papers and spent a long time flipping them up and down trying to determine what comes up and what comes down. But, no matter how long he tried he couldn't sort it out so he put the papers aside and had a drink.

  -- Nice, -- said the dad -- but we are out of pickles.

  The mom made a sound like a horse, which was pretty inappropriate, and made the maids look at the table cloth and laugh silently.

  The dad had another drink and suddenly grabbed the mom and put her on the cupboard.

  Mom's gray, big, light hair was shaking, she got red spots all over her face, and, generally speaking, she was pretty upset.

  The dad fixed his trousers and started a speech.

  But at this point a secret hatch opened down on the floor and from it crawled out a monk.

  The maids were so confused that one of them started to puke. Natasha was holding her forehead and trying to hide what was going on.

  The monk, the one that got out of the floor, aimed at the dad's ear and hit him so hard that everybody could hear the bells ringing in the dad's head!

  The dad just sat down without even finishing his speech.

  Than the monk approached the mom and with his hand, or leg, somehow from below, he kicked her.

  The mom started to scream and cry for help.

  Then the monk grabbed both maids by their aprons and, after swinging them through the air, let them hit the wall.

  Then, unnoticed, the monk crawled back into the floor and closed the hatch behind himself.

  For a long time neither the dad, nor the mom nor maid Natasha could recover. But later, when they got some fresh air, they had another drink while fixing their appearance, they sat down at the table, and started to eat salad.

  After another drink everybody was talking quietly.

  Suddenly the dad got red in the face and started to yell:

  -- What! What! -- the dad was yelling. -- You think that I am anal! You look at me like at a devil! I do not ask for your love! You are the devils!

  The mom and maid Natasha ran out of the room and locked themselves in the kitchen.

  -- Go away you drunk! Go, you son of a devil! -- whispered the mom and the totally confused maid Natasha, behind the door with.

  And the dad stayed in the dining room until the morning when he took his bag, put on a white hat and quietly went to work.

  (1929)

  A Man Left His House

  A man left his house

  With a cane and a sack,

  Set off

  Down the road

  And never looked back.

  He walked ever onward,

  He walked ever straight,

  Never slept,

  Never drank,

  Never drank, slept, or ate.

  He came to a forest

  As dark as the night.

  He walked

  Right in

  And vanished from sight.

  But if ever you chance

  To meet up with this man

  Oh please

  Let us know

  As quick as you can.

  A Tale

  -- Here,-- said Vanya, putting his notebook on the desk, -- let's start writing a tale.

  -- Ok,-- said Lenochka, taking a seat.

  Vanya took a pencil and wrote:

  "Once upon a time there was a king..."

  Then he started thinking and raised his eyes to the ceiling.

  Lenochka peeked into the notebook a
nd read Vanya's writing.

  -- Such a tale has already been written,-- said Lenochka.

  -- How do you know? -- asked Vanya.

  -- I know because I've been reading,-- said Lenochka.

  -- What is that tale about? -- asked Vanya.

  -- Well, it's about the king who was drinking tea with an apple and choked suddenly, when the queen started patting him on the back to make a piece of an apple pop back. But the king decided that the queen was fighting him and hit her head with a glass. Then the queen got angry with the king and hit him with a plate. But the king hit the queen with a bowl. But the queen hit the king with a chair. But the king got up and hit the queen with a table. But the queen tapped a kitchen shelf over the king. But the king got out from under the kitchen shelf and threw a crown at the queen. Then the queen grabbed king's hair and threw him out of the window. But the king got back into the room through the other window, grabbed the queen and stuffed her into the oven. But the queen climbed to the roof through the chimney, then slided down a lightning rod to the yard and came back to the room through the window. Meanwhile the king was starting fire in the oven to burn the queen. The queen sneaked from the back and pushed the king. The king fell into the oven and burned down. That was the end of the story,-- said Lenochka.

  -- It is a very silly tale,-- said Vanya.-- I was going to write quite a different tale.

  -- Well, why won't you,-- said Lenochka.

  Vanya took a pencil and wrote:

  "Once upon a time there was a bandit..."

  -- Wait! -- yelled Lenochka.-- Such a tale has already been written!

  -- I didn't know,-- said Vanya.

  -- How come,-- said Lenochka,-- haven't you known how a bandit, when trying to escape the guards, tried to jump on horse, but fell to the other side and hit the ground. Tha bandit cursed and tried to ride the horse again, but his jump was still inaccurate, so he fell to the ground from the other side of the horse. The bandit got up, waved his clenched fist, jumped on the horse and again flew over and dropped to the ground. Then he grabbed a pistol from his belt, shot into the air and jumped on the horse with such a force that he again flew over and collapsed on the ground. Then the bandit ripped a hat off his head, danced all over it and again jumped on the horse, and again flew over, collapsed on the ground and broke his leg. The bandit limped to the horse and hit its forehead with a fist. The horse ran away. Meanwhile the guards arrived on their horses, caught him and lead him to the jail.

  -- Well, I won't write about a bandit then,-- said Vanya.

  -- But about whom then? -- asked Lenochka.

  -- I will write a tale about a smith,-- said Vanya.

  Vanya wrote:

  "Once upon a time there was a smith..."

  -- Such a tale has already been written, too! -- cried out Lenochka.

  -- What? -- said Vanya and put down the pencil.

  -- Surely,-- said Lenochka.-- Once upon a time there was a smith. One day he was forging a horseshoe and made such a swing with a hammer, that it tore the hammer head off the handle, the hammer head flew out through the window, killed four pigeons, hit the fire watch tower, bounced to the side, broke window in a house of a fire marshall, flew over the table, at which the fire marshall was sitting himself with his wife, broke through the wall in the house of the fire marshall and flew out to the street. Here it tipped a street lamp pole to the ground, hit down an ice-cream seller, and struck the head of Karl Ivanovich Shusterling, who took off his hat for a minute to check the back of his head. After bouncing off the head of Karl Ivanovich Shusterling, the hammer head flew back, hit down the ice-cream seller again, threw two fighting cats off the roof, turned a cow upside down, killed four sparrows and flew back into the smithy and sat back on its handle, which the smith was holding in his right hand. All that happened so fast, that the smith had not noticed anything and still kept on forging the horseshoe.

  -- Well, since a tale about a smith has already been written, I will write a tale about myself,-- said Vanya and wrote:

  "Once upon a time there was a kid Vanya..."

  -- The tale about Vanya has already been written,-- said Lenochka.-- Once upon a time there was a kid Vanya, and one day he came to...

  -- Wait,-- said Vanya,-- I was going to write a tale about myself.

  -- A tale about you has allready been written too,-- said Lenochka.

  -- This can't be so! -- said Vanya.

  -- I am telling you, it has,-- said Lenochka,

  -- Where is it, then? -- Vanya was surprised.

  -- Buy a "Chizh" magazine, issue number 7 and there you will read a tale about yourself,-- said Lenochka.

  Vanya bought "Chizh" number 7 and read exactly the same tale, that you have just read.

  (1935)

  The Connection

  Philosopher!

  1. I am writing to you in reply to your letter, which you are intending to write to me in reply to my letter which I wrote to you.

  2. A certain violinist bought himself a magnet and was taking it home. On the way some hooligans attacked the violinist and knocked his cap off. The wind caught his cap and carried it along the street.

  3. The violinist put his magnet down and ran off after his cap. The cap landed in a puddle of nitric acid, where it decomposed.

  4. And the hooligans had, by that time, grabbed the magnet and made off.

  5. The violinist returned home without his coat and without his cap, because the cap had decomposed in the nitric acid and the violinist, distressed by the loss of his cap, had forgotten his coat on the tram.

  6. The conductor of the tram in question took the coat to a second-hand shop and there he exchanged it for some sour cream, groats and tomatoes.

  7. The conductor's father-in-law stuffed himself on the tomatoes and died. The conductor's father-in-law's body was placed in the morgue, but then things got mixed up and, instead of the conductor's father-in-law, they buried some old woman.

  8. On the old woman's grave they placed a white post with the inscription: 'Anton Sergeyevich Kondrat'ev'.

  9. Eleven years later, this post fell down, eaten through by worms. And the cemetery watchman sawed the post into four pieces and burned it in his stove. And the cemetery watchman's wife cooked cauliflower soup over this fire.

  10. But, when the soup was just ready, the clock fell off the wall right into the saucepan full of soup. They got the clock out of the soup, but these had been bedbugs in the clock and now they were in the soup. They gave the soup to Timofey the beggar.

  11. Timofey the beggar ate the soup, bugs and all, and told Nikolay the beggar of the cemetery watchman's generosity.

  12. The next day Nikolay the beggar went to the cemetery watchman and started asking him for alms. But the cemetery watchman didn't give Nikolay the beggar anything and chased him away.

  13. Nikolay the beggar took this very badly and burned down the house of the cemetery watchman.

  14. The fire went from the house to the church and the church burned down.

  15. A lengthy investigation took place, but the cause of the fire could not be established.

  16. On the spot where the church had stood they built a club and on the club's opening day a concert was arranged at which performed the violinist who, fourteen years before, had lost his coat.

  17. And amid the audience there sat the son of one of those hooligans who, fourteen years before, had knocked the cap off this violinist.

  18. After the concert they travelled home in the same tram. But, in the tram which was following theirs, the tram-driver was that very conductor who had once sold the violinist's coat at the second-hand shop.

  19. And so there they are, travelling across the city in the late evening: in front are the violinist and the hooligan's son, and behind them the tram-driver and former conductor.

  20. They travel on and are not aware of what the connection is between them and this they will never learn until their dying day.

  (1937)

  This letter was addressed
to Yakov Semyonovich Druskin.

  A Nasty Character

  Sen'ka bashed Fed'ka across the chops and hid under the chest of drawers.

  Fed'ka got Sen'ka out from under the chest of drawers with a poker and tore off his right ear.

  Sen'ka slipped through Fed'ka's hands and, holding his torn-off ear, ran off to the neighbours.

  But Fed'ka caught up with Sen'ka and coshed him over the head with the sugar-basin.

  Sen'ka collapsed and, seemingly, died.

  Then Fed'ka packed his things in a suitcase and went away to Vladivostok.

  In Vladivostok Fed'ka became a tailor; strictly speaking, he was not exactly a tailor, because he made only ladies' underwear, principally drawers and brassieres. The ladies had no inhibitions with Fed'ka; right in front of him they would hitch up their skirts and Fed'ka would take their measurements.

  Fed'ka, as one might say, didn't half see some sights.

  Fed'ka was a nasty character.

  Fed'ka was the murderer of Sen'ka.

  Fed'ka was a lecherous devil.

  Fed'ka was a glutton, because every evening he ate a dozen cutlets. Fed'ka grow such a belly on him, that he made himself a corset and took to wearing it.

  Fed'ka was an unscrupulous man: he took money from children he met in the street, he tripped up old men and he terrorised old women by raising his hand to them and, when a frightened old woman shied to one side, Fed'ka would pretend that he had only raised his hand to scratch his head.

  It ended when Nikolay went up to Fed'ka, bashed him across the chops and hid under a cupboard.

  Fed'ka got Nikolay out with a poker from under the cupboard and ripped open his mouth.

  Nikolay ran off with his ripped mouth to the neighbours, but Fed'ka caught up with him and clubbed him with a beer mug. Nikolay collapsed and died.

  Fed'ka gathered his things and went away from Vladivostok.

  (written in two devices, by 21 November, 1937)