Dedalus Book of Russian Decadence

by Lodge, Kirsten; Rosen, Margo Shohl; Dashevsky, Grigory

  Vanya met Kolya with a malicious, vengeful glance. “Pop you into a sack and into the water with you,” he thought again.

  But he hid his anger, and started telling Kolya how he had been punished. Kolya listened to him with kind and tremulous sympathy. When he noticed this, Vanya gave a laugh and said, “It doesn’t matter to me. Let them do what they want with me; I’m not a bit scared. Anyway they already thrashed me for what I did. They say not to steal. Always guarding their precious stuff. So steal if you want, just don’t get caught.”

  The boys were squatting on their haunches at the riverside, staring thoughtfully into the water. A fish jumped, as if it felt cramped there in the cool, clear water. Midges hovered above the water. Everything was the same as usual: indifferent, pretty on the whole, but monotonous in the details, and not much fun.

  Vanya grew quiet. He whispered in a sad tone, “You know, I’ll tell you: I don’t want to live.”

  Kolya gave him a surprised look, his eyes wide. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “What I said,” answered Vanya calmly and as if mockingly. “I’ll die, and that’s all there is to it. I’ll drown myself.”

  “But aren’t you scared?” Kolya asked, frightened.

  “Scared? No, nothing scares me. Except living!” Vanya went on, fixing Kolya with the irresistibly transparent gaze of his spellbinding eyes. “It’s nasty living here, on this cursed earth. Man is a wolf to man here, on this hateful earth. What’s there to be afraid of? You choke for just a little, and then just like that you’re on the other side. And there everything is different.”

  “Different?” asked Kolya shyly, trustingly.

  “Completely different. Just think about it,” Vanya went on with conviction. “For instance, if you love travel…”

  “I do,” said Kolya.

  “Well, then,” Vanya continued, “no matter where you go on earth, it’s the same old rivers, trees and grass—everything, everything, brother, is just the same old thing. But there, beyond the grave, it’s totally, totally different. What it is, I don’t know, nobody knows, but you don’t like it here, do you?”

  Silently Kolya shook his head.

  “Yeah, it’s sickening to live here,” Vanya continued. “What’s frightening about dying? Are you afraid of death? That’s just here, death is just here on earth, we all die, but there, there isn’t any death. Here if you don’t get any grub, you’ll die—for lack of some stupid crusts, and you’re depending on them—but over there is freedom. Right now you’ve got a body. So much torment you get from it. You cut yourself and it hurts. But there won’t be any of that there. Your body will rot—who needs it? You’ll be free—and nobody will take you.”

  “But what about Mama?” asked Kolya.

  “What Mama?” Vanya answered in a compelling tone. “Maybe you dreamt her. You don’t have a Mama. All of that only seems to be, but really there isn’t anything, it’s just a fraud and that’s all. Think about it yourself: if all this really existed, would people die? How could it be possible to die? Here everything fades away, disappears like a ghost.”

  Kolya looked away from Vanya’s cold, transparent eyes, and gazed at his own body in bewilderment. “How can that be?” he said. “It’s still a body.”

  “But what’s it good for?” Vanya retorted. “People laugh at it. If you have a tuft of hair growing in the wrong place, or a mole, or you’re cross-eyed, everybody laughs at you. And they beat you up—and it hurts. You think: I get beaten up a lot; I’m used to it now. But you never get used to it. The physical pain—that doesn’t matter. But you never get used to the injustice of it. But over there, nobody wrongs you. Nobody tells you not to do things, nobody scolds, nobody reproaches you. Whatever you feel like, you do. Everything is possible. It’s here on earth that everything is the way it is—take one extra step, move a bottle from one place to another—and you’re already a thief and they humiliate you.”

  Vanya talked on, and Kolya looked at him with trusting, humble eyes. And the wrongs Vanya was talking about pained him very much—more than if they had been his own. And anyway, what did it matter who was wronged!

  A black bird flew over the children, and its broad wings moved quickly and noiselessly. Vanya spoke in a mournful and quiet, but irresistibly convincing tone, “You swallow a certain kind of liquid, and it’s like you’ve become a different person. There’s nothing of that sort there. You can’t hurt anyone and no one can hurt you. It’s good there. Here you look at people—you envy one, feel sorry for another—and your heart’s all in splinters. There there’s nothing of the kind.”

  And Vanya talked on like this for a long time, and Kolya came more and more under the spell of the sad sound of Vanya’s voice and the mournful allure of his incantations.

  Vanya fell silent, and the magic of his voice seemed to dissipate like airy smoke from an extinguished censer in the piney aromas of the forest. He gazed off into the distance, weary and silent, and Kolya suddenly wanted to make an objection that would be so strong it would be the last word. An eternally joyful and comforting feeling came over him. He raised his gladdened eyes to Vanya, and said in a gently resonant voice, “What about God?”

  Vanya turned to him and grinned, and Kolya again became frightened. Vanya’s transparent eyes blazed with an unchild-like meanness. Quietly and sombrely he said, “There is no God. And if there is—what good does he do you? You accidentally fall in the water—God won’t lift a finger to save you.”

  Kolya, pale, listened with horror.

  XVII

  The village kids took it into their heads to tease Vanya. They shouted to each other, “Hey, guys, there goes Three-brow—they gave him a proper drubbing today.”

  “Pulled down his britches, gave him some switches!”

  Coarse and insulting words showered down on him. Vanya stopped in his tracks. He looked silently at the kids with his clear, snake-like eyes, round and staring. The children quietened down, and timidly goggled at him with stupid, uncomprehending eyes. A peasant woman popped out from around the corner. She managed to sweep all the children together into one big armful, and angrily muttering something, dragged them off.

  “Trying to curse them, the blighter,” she grumbled.

  “What’s the matter, aunty?” her neighbour asked.

  “He’s got the evil eye,” she explained in a whisper.

  Vanya heard. He grinned mirthlessly and continued on his way.

  It was already evening and his father was having his after-dinner doze by the time Vanya got home. He brought his mother a small basket of wild strawberries.

  “I’ll give you what for,” his mother said savagely. “This morning wasn’t enough for you?”

  “I didn’t eat a single berry, I saved them all for you,” Vanya said piteously.

  “Where’d you get the basket?” his mother asked angrily, but there was already less ferocity in her voice.

  “Am I getting another whipping?” Vanya asked weepily. “I tried so hard.”

  “How dare you scarper off like that!” his mother shouted.

  “But I just wanted to go to the forest,” Vanya said plaintively.

  “Watch it, or I’m going to tell your father,” his mother said, but more complacently. “Sit down, you might as well eat something.”

  “So Father’s sleeping?” Vanya asked with a knowing smile. He sat down at the table and greedily set to his food.

  “Starved,” his mother thought pityingly.

  “He had his dinner; he’ll be snoring till teatime,” she said. “Came home tipsy. No worse than you were yesterday. Taking after your dad.”

  She stood there with her hands on her hips, smoking, and looked at her son with a tenderness that seemed funny and out of place on her coarse, red face. She felt sorry for him for having been whipped on account of that “namby-pamby” kid. “And he looks so green,” she thought. “Oh, well, he’s a fine, strong lad, our boy,” she soothed herself. “He’ll come ’round in no time in this air.”<
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  “Somebody got him plastered?” asked Vanya, and gave a sly wink towards the next room, from where the sleeping man’s snores could be heard.

  “It was Strekalov of course—dragged him into it,” his mother answered. “Those people are just despicable.”

  She talked completely openly with her son, on equal terms, unabashed.

  XVIII

  Now every time the boys got together, they would talk about death. Vanya extolled both death and the afterlife. Kolya listened and believed what he heard. And he became gradually more oblivious to nature, and death became more and more desirable and appealing—comforting, calm and assuaging all earthly sorrows and worries. It liberated, and its promises were forever immutable. There is no lover on earth more tender and faithful than death. And if the name of death terrifies people, it’s because they don’t know that death is true and eternal, forever immutable life. Death promises a different form of being, and it will never betray you. Unlike everything and everyone else, death alone will never betray you.

  And it was sweet to dream of it. And whoever said that it is horrible to have such dreams? It’s sweet to dream of death as a faithful woman, far off, yet always close by.

  And Kolya started to forget about everything. His heart was turning away from everything he was attached to. And Mama, whom he had always held so dear—what did she matter? And did she even exist? Wasn’t everything on this earth equally false and dreamlike? Here nothing was really true; this inconstant world, soon to vanish into boundless oblivion, was inhabited only by passing shades.

  Vanya’s spellbinding gaze, instilling a single obsession deep in Kolya’s soul, drew him to the forest every day, into the ravine where the stream murmured the same things Vanya’s light, transparent eyes said to him as they led him into oblivion.

  Deeper and deeper the oblivion became, and sweeter.

  And when Vanya looked at Kolya for a long time with those clear, unmoving eyes—beneath this merciless gaze Kolya forgot everything as completely as people do in the embrace of that most comforting of angels—the angel of death.

  But Kolya’s angel of death grimaced and concealed his malicious thoughts. Even before, his thoughts had been depraved and cruel, but now they had taken on an especial edge. He dreamt of death—of Kolya’s death, and then of his own as well. And he spent anguished nights in mad fantasies, imagining the cruellest mortal agonies.

  In tempting Kolya, he had seduced himself with the most fatal temptation of all. The poisoner had been poisoned at his own hands.

  In the beginning he had wanted to drown Kolya and walk away. But then he forgot about walking away. He was captivated by his own dreams of death.

  And Kolya’s fantasies and dreams had become just as mad. They passed back and forth between the boys as if they were the same.

  XIX

  One afternoon they met at the edge of the forest. Vanya’s face was pale and swollen.

  “Why are you so pale?” Kolya asked.

  “I was doing a lot of dreaming,” Vanya told him.

  The boys were silent for a bit. Vanya looked all around, making sure no one was around, and said, “I know a deep place. As soon as you fall in you drown.”

  “Where is it?” asked Kolya.

  Vanya started laughing, and stuck his tongue out at Kolya. “No,” he said, “I’m not showing you ahead of time, or you’ll go on your own. And I want to go with you.”

  Vanya embraced Kolya, and said in a sinister, quiet voice, “Together with you, my dear.”

  Kolya saw the clear, blank eyes so close, close up, and, as always, those eyes enveloped him in dark oblivion. All was forgotten, he didn’t want to think about anything—an abyss in those eyes…

  The boys agreed to go away that night and die.

  “Mama is performing today,” Kolya said.

  “All the better,” answered Vanya.

  And the talk of Mama did not arouse any feeling in Kolya.

  Vanya laughed and said to Kolya, “But when you leave the house, leave your cross at home—you won’t need it.”

  Vanya left. Kolya remained alone. He didn’t think about Vanya’s words. Not that he forgot them—the anguish they aroused remained, and the poisonous words kept burning in his soul. There they lived and continued to grow, while Kolya lived, as always, with his usual impressions: Mama, playing, the swing, going to the river, the boys in the village—just as before.

  Except that just as before it was terribly monotonous. Boring. The important thing was that Mama didn’t see how bored he was.

  And Kolya always met Mama with his former, habitual, sour smile.

  XX

  Night fell. And it was mournful, quiet, dark, and long, like the final night.

  Mama was performing that day at the theatre. She had managed to get her favourite part, and today was the premiere. Mama was so happy. She left right after dinner, and would not be back for quite a while: after the performance there would be dancing until four in the morning. Kolya would already be asleep when Mama got back.

  The maid gave Kolya his tea, put him to bed, locked the door and went off on her own. Kolya was alone. Not for the first time. He wasn’t afraid.

  But when the click of the latch, a light metallic click, reached his ear, he was seized by a feeling of cold alienation.

  He lay in bed for a little while, on his back, gazing at the dark ceiling with darkened eyes. “What about Mama?” he thought from time to time.

  “There is no Mama,” someone seemed to say, or perhaps it was someone’s words echoing in his head.

  With a wry grin, Kolya slipped quietly from the bed and began to get dressed. He was going to take his shoes, but then he remembered that the ground was damp and cool now—it would feel tender and caressing on his feet.

  Moist Mother Earth!1

  Kolya threw his shoes under the bed and went to the window. There was a full moon, light green and ugly, in the sky. It seemed to be hiding behind the treetops, spying. Its light was soft and lifeless, and its rays were tremulous and mesmerising as they penetrated through the branches…

  Vanya cut through the back gardens to the garden behind Kolya’s cottage. All the windows were dark. Vanya gently rapped at Kolya’s window. It opened. Kolya looked out. He was pale, and smiling his sour smile. The moonlight fell full on Vanya’s face.

  “You’re green,” Kolya said.

  “That’s how I am,” Vanya answered. His face was calm and expressionless, almost lifeless. Only his eyes were alive, and glowed with a liquid, transparent gleam. “Right, let’s get going then,” he said. “It’s time.”

  Kolya, awkwardly grasping the windowsill with his small, white hands, climbed out of the window. Vanya helped, supporting him. “Should have worn shoes, it’s cold,” said Vanya.

  “And what about you?” Kolya retorted.

  “I’m fine. I’m not afraid,” said Vanya, and smiled cheerlessly.

  “Me, neither,” Kolya said quietly.

  The boys left the garden and went along the narrow edge of the field towards the darkened forest nearby. Vanya whispered, “See, the moon is so bright. There used to be people there, too, but they all died. That was when the earth was a sun. It was warm on the moon, and there was air and water, and day and night followed each other by turn, the grass grew, and happy, barefoot boys ran in the grass, in the dew. Hey, brother, they all died, they cooled down, and who gives a fig for them now?”

  Kolya turned to Vanya with a sour, sad smile, and whispered, “And now we’re going to die.”

  “Don’t start snivelling,” Vanya scowled. “Next you’ll be crying. Are you cold?”

  “I’m all right,” Kolya answered quietly. “Will we be there soon?” he asked.

  “We’re almost there.”

  The boys went down to the river. Here it was squeezed between its narrow banks: on the far side was a cliff wall, and the near bank angled steeply down to the water. A few large stones lay on the bank and in the water near the bank. It was quiet. T
he moon, bright and cold, hung above the precipice, staring and waiting. The water seemed still and dark. The trees and bushes stood in silence. Tiny, ugly flowers, white and ominous, stood out against the grass.

  Vanya felt around near one of the stones on the bank and came up with two nets with broken handles. He tied twine to the edges, making them into a pair of sacks, and put a stone in each. “Two bags,” he said quietly.

  The two boys stood next to each other near the water on a broad, low stone like a gravestone, and both gazed at the dark water in equal fright. Captivated, they stood there, and now there was no going back. And each of them had a sack with a stone in it hanging on his chest, the twine pulling at his neck.

  “Go ahead,” said Vanya. “First you, then me.”

  “No, let’s go together,” answered Kolya in a quietly resonant voice.

  “Together? Let’s go, then,” Vanya said decisively, and grinned.

  Vanya’s face suddenly changed, growing thin and dark. A cold, final passivity weighed upon him…

  Kolya wanted to cross himself. Vanya grabbed his hand.

  “What are you doing, don’t!” he said angrily. “You’re still a believer? All right, then, if He wants to save you, let these stones in our sacks turn into bread.”

  Kolya raised his eyes to the sky. The dead moon looked dully down on him. No prayer stirred in his enfeebled soul. The stone remained a stone….

  Kolya noticed a slim branch with little leaves above him. Its very elegant black contours stood out against the dark-blue sky.

  “Beautiful!” Kolya thought. Someone called him from behind, as if in Mama’s voice: “Kolya!”

  But, it was too late. His body was already bending towards the water, falling faster and faster.

  Kolya fell. There was a heavy splash. Cold, heavy drops splashed Vanya in the face.

  Kolya drowned at once. A cold anguish seized Vanya. It drew him irresistibly forward after Kolya. His face was distorted with pathetic grimaces. Strange shudders ran through his body. He was all bent over, as if trying to pull away from someone who was holding him and pushing him forward. And suddenly he stretched out his hands, gave a plaintive cry, and fell in the water. The water parted with a slap, spray flew up, and dark circles rippled through the water and died away. And again it was quiet.