Dedalus Book of Russian Decadence

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

  “Lily! Is Avdeyev coming today?” asked Sergey Andreyevich with forced, exaggerated indifference.

  Lily fluttered her long lashes in fright, dropped a pear she had been holding and let out a whispered “Ahh!” Then she crawled under the table after the pear, and when she got back up she was bright red, and even her voice sounded red. “Tinov is coming, Pospelov is coming … and Avdeyev is coming, too.”

  It had got a little lighter in Pavel’s room, and the stucco village on the ceiling stood out more sharply, gloating with dull and naïve self-satisfaction. Pavel turned away angrily and took up a book, but soon put it down on his chest and started thinking about what Lily had said: the high school girls were coming over. That meant that Katya Reimer was coming, too—ever-serious, ever-pensive, ever-sincere Katya Reimer. This thought was like a fire his heart had fallen into, and with a groan he quickly turned over and buried his face in the pillow. Then, just as quickly assuming his former position, he brushed two burning tears from his eyes and stared up at the ceiling, but now he saw neither the big peasant with the big stick, nor the huge cart. His thoughts returned to the summer cottage and a dark July night.

  That night was dark, and the stars trembled in the dark-blue abyss of the sky, and a black storm cloud, climbing up from beyond the horizon, was snuffing them out from below. And in the forest, where he lay behind the bushes, it was so dark he couldn’t see his own hand, and sometimes he imagined that he himself wasn’t even there, and there was only silent, deep darkness. The world spread out far away in all directions, and it was endless and dark, and with all his lonely and sorrowful heart Pavel felt its immeasurable and alien enormity. He lay there and waited for Katya Reimer to come down the path with Lily and the other happy, carefree people who lived in a world alien to him and who were themselves alien to him. He hadn’t gone with them, since he loved Katya Reimer with a pure, beautiful, languishing love, and she didn’t know about this love and could not possibly ever share it. And he felt like being alone and near to Katya, so as to feel more deeply her inaccessible allure and the full gamut of his own grief and loneliness. And he lay there in the bushes, on the ground, alien to all people and outside of life, which was passing him by in all its beauty, songs and joyousness—passing by in that dark July night.

  He had been lying there a long time, and the darkness had become even thicker and darker, when from far ahead came the sound of voices, laughter and the snapping of twigs underfoot, and it became clear that a throng of happy young people was heading his way. And all this drew closer in a swarm of happy sounds, and then it was right next to him.

  “Oh, my goodness,” Katya Reimer was saying in a thick, resonant contralto, “you could bang your head here! Tinov, let’s have a light!”

  From the darkness the strange, funny voice of a punchinello squeaked out, “I’ve lost my matches, Katerina Eduardovna!”

  Amidst general laughter, another voice sounded, a youthful and reserved bass, “Allow me, Katerina Eduardovna, I’ll strike a light!”

  Katya Reimer answered, and her voice was serious and changed, “Please do, Nikolai Petrovich!”

  A match flared and burnt for a second with a bright, white light, illuminating in the dark only the hand that held it, as if it were hanging in the air. Then it was darker than ever, and everyone, with laughter and jokes, went on.

  “Give me your hand, Katerina Eduardovna!” the same young, reserved bass rang out.

  There was a moment of quiet, as Katya Reimer gave him her hand, then the sound of firm masculine steps and alongside them the modest rustle of a dress. And that same voice asked gently and tenderly, “Why are you so sad, Katerina Eduardovna?”

  Pavel didn’t hear an answer. They now had their backs to him as they walked; immediately their voices became more muffled, flared up again like the dying flame of a bonfire, and were extinguished. And when it seemed that there was nothing left but the muffled darkness and silence, a woman’s laugh resounded with surprising sonority, such a clear, innocent and strangely coy laugh that it seemed it wasn’t a person who had laughed, but a young, dark birch or someone hiding in its branches. And a ricocheting whisper seemed to whisk around the forest, and everything quietened down in anticipation, when a man’s voice, golden, soft, burnished and sonorous, sang out high and passionate: “You told me: ‘Yes—I love you!’ …”

  So blindingly bright, so full of life force was that voice, that the very forest seemed to stir, and something sparkling, like fireflies dancing, flashed in Pavel’s eyes. And again the same words, and they ran together as they rang, like a groan, like a shout, like a deep, indivisible sigh: “You told me: ‘Yes—I love you!’ …”

  And again, and again, with mad insistence the singer repeated the same short and long phrase, as if he were thrusting it into the darkness. It seemed he couldn’t stop; and with each repetition the burning appeal became stronger and more uncontainable; there was now something merciless in the sound—someone’s face grew pale—and happiness became almost indistinguishable from mortal anguish.

  A minute of black silence—far away, quietly sparkling, mysterious as summer lightning, a woman’s laugh—and then all was still, and the heavy blackness seemed to swallow them up. It became deathly quiet and empty, as in empty space a thousand miles above the earth. Life had passed by with all its songs, love and beauty—passed by in the dark July night.

  Pavel came out from behind the bushes and quietly whispered, “Why are you so sad, Katerina Eduardovna?” and quiet tears came to his eyes.

  “Why are you so sad, Katerina Eduardovna?” he repeated and walked aimlessly ahead, into the blackness of the darkest night. Once he brushed against a tree next to him, and halted in confusion. Then he put his arms around its rough trunk, pressed his face against it as if it were a friend, and froze in a quiet despair unrelieved by tears and frenzied cries. Then, quietly, he staggered back, away from the tree that had been his refuge, and went on.

  “Why are you so sad, Katerina Eduardovna?” he repeated like a lament, like a quiet prayer of despair, and his entire soul was concentrated there, beating and weeping in those sounds. Enveloped there in ominous dusk, and full of great love, it prayed for something pure and radiant, something of which it had no knowledge, and it was this that made its prayer so fervent.

  Now the tranquillity and quiet of the forest was gone: the breath of a storm stirred the air, the treetops set up a distant murmur, and the wind snickered dryly through the leaves. When Pavel came out to the edge of the woods, the wind all but blew off his hat and hit him powerfully in the face with its cold freshness and the scent of rye. It was grand and threatening. Behind him the forest billowed in a black and dully groaning mass, and ahead a heavy, black thundercloud, like darkness that had taken form, bore down on him. And beneath the cloud the field of rye spread out, and it was completely white, and because it was so white amidst the darkness, when no light fell from anywhere, an incomprehensible and mystical terror began to stir. And when lightning erupted and the clouds were etched as a gauzy, uneasy mass of shades, a broad golden-red fire fell across the field from one end to the other, and the ears of grain ran with their heads down, like a startled herd—ran into that thundering July night.

  Pavel climbed up on a high embankment, stretched out his open arms as if calling down upon his breast the wind, the black storm cloud and the entire sky, so marvellously beautiful in its fiery wrath. And the wind circled about his face as if feeling it all over, and with a whistle it tore into a thicket of pliant leaves, while the thundercloud flashed and rumbled, and the ears of rye, bending low, ran on.

  “Come on then, come on!” shouted Pavel, but the wind caught his words and savagely crammed them back down his throat, and the rebellious and prayerful words, addressed by one small man to the great unknown, were lost in the rumbling of the heavens.

  That had been in the summer, on a dark July night.

  Pavel gazed at the ceiling, smiling a sweet and proud smile, and tears brimmed in his eyes.
“What a cry-baby I’ve become!” he whispered, shaking his head, and naïvely, like a child, he wiped his eyes with his fingers.

  He turned hopefully to the windows, but only dirty city fog, gloomy and monotonous, looked back, turning everything yellow: the ceiling, the walls and the creased pillow. And the pure images of the past that he had flushed out into the open wavered, grew dim and collapsed, shoving and moaning, somewhere into a black pit.

  “Why are you so sad?” Pavel said like an incantation, like a prayer for mercy; but it was powerless in the face of new, yet unclear but already familiar and terrible images. Like rotten fog over a rusty swamp, they rose from that black pit, and his aroused memory powerfully called up more and more pictures.

  “Not that, not that!” Pavel whispered, and he writhed and twisted in pain.

  Once again he saw the summer cottage, but now it was day—a strange, ominous day. It was sweltering and the sun shone, and a disquieting burning smell hung in the air; and he was hiding in the bushes near the riverbank and trembling with fright as he looked through binoculars at some women bathing. And he saw the bright pink spots of their bodies, and the blue sky that seemed red, and himself, pale, with shaking hands and dirt stains on his knees. Then he saw the stone city, and again women, indifferent, tired, with insolent, cold eyes.

  Their made-up and pale faces streamed by and receded into the depths of the past, and among them flashed moustached male physiognomies, bottles of beer and half-finished drinks, and in a smoky haze half-lit shadows circled in a dance, and a piano clanged away relentlessly, belching out the dolorous, relentless sounds of a polka.

  “Not that!” whispered Pavel, gently, already giving in.

  And the memories cut into his soul like a sharp knife cutting into living flesh. And they were all of women, of their soulless bodies, as repulsive as the sticky muck of backyards, and yet strangely alluring in their brazen dirtiness and availability. And they were absolutely everywhere. They were in the cynical, vitriolic conversations and idiotic jokes he heard from others and could himself tell so masterfully; they were in the drawings he drew and showed with a laugh to his friends and in his lonely thoughts and fantasies, which were as oppressive as nightmares and as alluring as dreams.

  And a certain night arose before him, as lifelike as only that which can never be forgotten: an acrid, smoky night. That night, two years ago, he had given his pure body and his first pure kisses to a debauched and shameless woman. Her name was Luiza; she had been dressed in a hussar’s uniform and complained incessantly that her stockings were tearing. Pavel could only barely remember how he had been with her. The only thing he remembered well was his house, to which he had returned late—shortly before dawn. The house was dark and quiet; in the dining room his dinner was waiting, the thick cutlet covered in a layer of white, congealed fat. He was feeling nauseous from the beer, and when he lay down the stucco ceiling, poorly illuminated in the candlelight, swayed, spun and swam. He went out several times, staggering, trying not to make noise and clinging to chairs. Because he was not used to being barefoot, the floor seemed terribly cold and slippery, and this extraordinary cold made it especially clear that it had been night for quite a while now, and everyone was quietly sleeping, while he alone was up and suffering from a pain that was alien to everything in this pure, good house.

  Pavel looked around with hatred at his room with its revolting stucco ceiling and, submissive before this surge of memories, yielded to their terrible power.

  He recalled Petrov, a handsome and confident young man, who spoke absolutely calmly and dispassionately about bought women, and taught his companions, “I never permit myself to kiss a streetwalker. You should only kiss someone you love and respect, not those bitches.”

  “But what if she kisses you?” asked Pavel.

  “Let her! … I turn away.”

  Pavel gave a bitter, sad smile. He wasn’t capable of doing as Petrov did, and he kissed those women. His lips touched their cold bodies, and once there was a time when—and this was frightening to remember—in a strange challenge to himself he had kissed a limp hand that smelled of perfume and beer. He kissed it as if punishing himself; he kissed it as if his lips might work a miracle and turn a bought woman into a pure, beautiful one, worthy of great love—the thirst for which consumed his heart. And she said, “What a licker you are!”

  And he had caught something from her. He had caught a shameful and dirty disease, which people talked about in secret, in a mocking whisper, behind closed doors—a disease impossible to think of without horror and self-loathing.

  Pavel jumped up from the bed and went to the table. There he shuffled through papers and notebooks, uncovering things and covering them back up, and his hands trembled. And from the corners of his eyes he nervously sought out that place on the table where, locked up and carefully hidden by papers, the necessaries for medical treatment lay.

  “If I had a revolver, I would shoot myself right now. Right here …” he thought and brought his finger to his left side, where his heart was beating.

  And looking fixedly ahead, thinking about which one of his friends could get hold of a gun, he walked over to his rumpled bed and lay down. Then he fell to thinking about whether he would manage to hit his heart, and after unbuttoning his jacket and shirt, he began to examine with interest his young, as yet undeveloped chest.

  “Pavel, open up!” came Lily’s voice at the door.

  Giving a startled shudder, as he now always did at the least unexpected sound or cry, Pavel hastily collected himself and unwillingly undid the bolt.

  “What is it?” he asked with a frown.

  “Just wanted to give you a kiss. Why do you lock yourself in all the time? Are you afraid of being robbed?”

  Pavel lay down on the bed, and Lily, after an unsuccessful attempt to sit down by him, said, “Move over! You’re such a grump! Can’t you even make room for your little sister?”

  Pavel silently moved over.

  “I’m bored today,” Lily said. “I don’t know. Something’s not right. It’s probably because of the weather; I love sunshine, and this is so disgusting. I’m feeling so grumpy I could bite.”

  And cautiously stroking his short-cropped, prickly head, she looked tenderly in his eyes and asked, “Pavel darling! What’s made you so sad?”

  Pavel looked away and answered curtly, “I wasn’t happy before.”

  “No, Pavel, I know better. You’ve been like this ever since we came back from holiday. You hide yourself away from everyone, you never laugh. You don’t dance anymore.”

  “Dancing is stupid…”

  “But you didn’t used to think so. You dance the mazurka better than anyone, and the other dances, too. Pavel, come on, tell me what’s wrong? Tell me, darling, you nice, good old fellow!

  And she kissed him on the cheek, above his flushed ear.

  “Don’t touch me! Go away!” And twitching his shoulders, he added quietly, “I’m dirty…”

  Lily laughed aloud and tickled him behind the ear, saying, “You’re clean as clean, Pavel! Remember how we used to take a bath together? You were so white, like a dear little piglet, clean as can be, absolutely squeaky clean!”

  “Go away, Lily! Please! For God’s sake!”

  “I’m not going until you cheer up. You have little sideburns by your ears. I just noticed. Let me kiss them!”

  “Lily, go away! Don’t touch me! I’m telling you,” Pavel said hollowly, hiding his face, “I’m dir … dirty … Dirty!” With a heavy sigh he breathed out the torturing word and his whole body, from head to toe, shook in a fit of instantly loosed and suppressed sobs.

  “What’s wrong, Pavel, dear heart?” Lily was frightened. “Shall I call dad?”

  Pavel hollowly, but calmly replied, “No, don’t. Nothing’s wrong. My head hurts a little.”

  Lily stroked the cropped, angled back of his head with a wary tenderness and looked at him thoughtfully. Then she said in a neutral tone, “Katya Reimer asked about you y
esterday.”

  After a silence Pavel, without turning, asked, “What did she ask?”

  “Just, you know, generally: how you are, what you are doing, why you never visit. I guess they invited you over?”

  “Not likely!…”

  “No, Pavel, don’t say such things! You don’t know her. She’s very intelligent and cultured, and she’s interested in you. You think she only likes dancing, but she reads a lot and wants to start a reading club. She always says to me, ‘How intelligent your brother is!’”

  “She’s a flirt … and a bitch.”

  Lily flushed scarlet, furiously pushed Pavel away and got up.

  “You’re vile yourself if you talk that way.”

  “Vile? Yes. So what?” Pavel retorted challengingly, looking with angry, welling eyes at his sister.

  “Don’t you dare talk that way! Don’t you dare!”shouted Lily, completely red, her eyes just as angry and glistening.

  “But I’m vile!” Pavel insisted.

  “You’re rude, unbearable, you’re spoiling everyone’s life … Egoist!”

  “And she’s a bitch, your Kat … Katya. And you’re all bitches, you’re rubbish!”

  Lily’s eyes flashed. Grasping the door handle, she stifled the trembling in her voice and said, “I was sorry for you and that’s why I came to see you. But you’re not worth it. And I’m never coming to see you again. You hear me, Pavel?”

  The angled back of his head remained immobile. Lily gave an angry nod and left the room.

  With an expression of total scorn, as if something impure had just gone out of the door, Pavel painstakingly fastened the lock and began to pace about the room. He felt better, now that he had heaped invective on both Katya and Lily, and called them what they were: bitches and rubbish. And pacing cautiously, he began to think about how all women were bad, egoists and limited beings. Lily, for instance. She could not understand that he was unhappy, and that’s why she talked that way and gave him such a dressing-down, like a tradeswoman. She was in love with Avdeyev, but the day before yesterday Petrov came over, and she had yelled at the maid and then at their mother because they couldn’t find her red ribbon. And Katya Reimer was just the same: she was pensive, serious, interested in him, in Pavel, and said that he was intelligent; but as soon as that Petrov comes to her house, she puts on a sky-blue ribbon for him, and she primps in front of the mirror and makes a pretty face. And that’s all for Petrov; and Petrov is a cocky, vulgar dimwit, and everyone in the entire school knows it.