This translation of Konstantin Vaginov's The Tower (original title: The Goat-Song) is based on the original edition published by Priboy Publishers of Leningrad, U.S.S.R. in 1928. It was reprinted by Silver Age of New York in 1978. The edition of Kozlinaia Pesn' published by Sovremennik of Moscow in 1991 is a fundamentally different version of the novel.
Note 1: I've retained Vaginov's occasional inconsistency in chapter organization and order. However, I've changed the names of certain chapters where artistically appropriate.
Note 2: Special terms, weights and measures and other references and allusions are translated into their American equivalents. For example, Russian 30° wine is, in American practice, not 30-proof but 60-proof wine (See Chapter 23).
Note 3: The text of this online edition of The Tower is identical in every respect to the hardcover version. Naturally, we have taken advantage of the special opportunities afforded by the Web to employ such HTML features such as color, paragraph design and hyperlinks. Finally, the Georgia 14 pt. font used in the hardcover edition has been replaced by Times New Roman 12 pt, the standard on the Web.
Note 4: The Greek words that appear in Chapter 29 have been rendered in their original Greek form. However, due to the limitations of HTML, it was necessary to omit their diacritical marks. Furthermore, certain browsers (e.g. Netscape 2.x) will convert them to roman characters. My apologies.
Cover Art: "Red Square" (also known as "Moscow I") by Wassily Kandinsky (1916). This "dust jacket" was designed exclusively for our online edition of The Tower.
I wish to express my deepest gratitude to Professor Victor Terras of Brown University, an internationally renowned authority on Russian literature (A History of Russian Literature, Yale University Press, 1991), who kindly read the entire manuscript. I especially appreciate his many specific suggestions and emendations, most of which have been incorporated into the final text. My gratitude to Professor Alexander Boguslawski of Rollins College for his generous help with HTML problems and for designing the Kandinsky cover page for the online edition.
My thanks to Hummingbird Corporation for their technical assistance with certain aspects of this project. My special thanks to Ms. Helen Sher, my long-suffering mother, and to the Tof family of Melbourne, Australia, namely, Dvora Tof, my sister, Samu Tof, her husband and their daughter Ilanit. Finally, my deepest appreciation to my wife Anna, a native of Moscow, who served unselfishly as consultant, editor and proofreader. Her unfailing scholarship and devotion have been indispensable throughout.
Prologue
For some time now, Petersburg has been awash in a greenish hue, a gleaming, blinking, phosphorescent, horrifying color. A greenish light,
venomous and sniggering, trembles on houses, faces, souls. The light blinks—and you are facing a clammy reptile instead of Pyotr Petrovich. The light flares up—and you yourself are worse than a reptile. Lift up the hats of women passing by, and you'll discover snakes where heads should be. Take a good look at that old woman—that's a she-toad moving its belly. Now for the younger folk. Each is nursing his own dream: The engineer pines for Hawaiian music, the collegiate wants to hang himself with bravado, the schoolboy to prove his masculinity by knocking up some broad. Just walk into any ol' store—an ex-general is standing behind the counter, a studied smile on his face. Enter a museum—your guide knows he's lying to you, yet keeps on lying. There is no love in me for Petersburg. My dream is dead.
Petersburg no longer exists. But Leningrad does—though that is of no concern to us. The author is by trade a maker of coffins and not of cradles. Show him a coffin and he'll tell you instantly the material it is made of by tapping on it, its age, the name of the master who built it—even, perhaps, the parents of the deceased. Indeed, even as he is speaking, the author is building a coffin for the first twenty-seven years of his life. He is fiendishly busy, but don't suppose for a moment that he is doing it with any specific purpose in mind. No, it's just a passion with him. Just let him get wind of a corpse and—you guessed it!—somebody is in need of a coffin. He loves the dead and follows them on their rounds even while they are still alive, shaking their hands, striking up conversations with them, piling up plenty of boards and nails and, on occasion, even throwing in trimmings and lace.
In a city where starlit nights melt each year into white nights, there lived in our midst a mysterious creature, and his name was Teptyolkin. Surrounded by nymphs and satyrs and carrying a teapot in his hand, he could often be seen looking for hot water in the common dining hall. In places reeking with stench, he felt himself moving through fragrant groves of delight, and statues in affected poses—a legacy of the eighteenth century—were in his mind's eye radiant suns made of Pentel marble. Only now and then did Teptyolkin lift up his enormous, brilliant eyes—and then he saw himself in a desert. A swirling, forlorn desert taking on a variety of forms. Heavy sand spirals up towards the insufferable sky, then turns into columns of stone. Waves of sand shoot up—and freeze into walls. A pillar of dust, whipped up by the wind, ascends from the desert floor and, presto, a homo sapiens! Particles of dust soon coalesce into trees, their miraculous fruit twinkling and gleaming. One of the most unstable pillars of dust for Teptyolkin was Marya Dalmatova. In her rustling silk dress, she loomed as an unchangeable something in a world of changeability. Whenever they met, she seemed to embrace the world in a harmonious and well-ordered unity. But this happened only occasionally. Ordinarily, Teptyolkin held to the view that mankind was fundamentally incapable of change: Once begotten—like a plant—man puts out flowers, which then turn into fruit, and the fruit in turn is scattered in the form of seeds. To Teptyolkin, everything was just such a scattered fruit. He lived with the perpetual sensation of a decomposing skin of fruit, of decaying seeds, amidst shoots that have already sprouted. This decaying skin of fruit exuded the most refined, the most diverse emanations. At seven in the evening, Teptyolkin returned to his room carrying a teapot of piping hot water and threw himself into some meaningless and unnecessary task. He was writing a treatise on some unknown poet and planned to recite it to a circle of drowsy ladies and enraptured young men. A little table would be set up. On it would stand a lamp with a colored lampshade and a little flower-pot with a flower inside. With everyone seated in a semi-circle, Teptyolkin would raise his eyes rapturously to the ceiling, then lower them to look at the sheets of scribbled paper before him. It was on this evening that Teptyolkin was supposed to give his reading. Glancing indifferently at the clock, he folded his sheets of paper and walked out. He lived on Derevenskaya Street, where grass grew between the stones, and where children sang bawdy songs. A woman chased after him, pleading with him to buy the last of her glossy sunflower seeds. He looked at the woman but hardly noticed her. At the corner, he ran right into Marya Dalmatova and Natasha Golubetz. A mother-of-pearl light shone from them. He kissed their hands as he bent over. No one knew how badly Teptyolkin yearned for a rebirth. "I want to get married!" he would often whisper to himself when alone with his landlady. On such occasions he would stretch himself out on his blue knitted bedspread—lanky, thin, with dry, greying hair. His landlady, spread out like a mountain, would shower him with love. Sitting at his feet, she'd vainly try to seduce him with the splendor of her bodily forms. She was a noblewoman—or so she said—and claimed to be fluent in a number of foreign languages. From her imagined grandeur she had preserved a silver sugar-basin and a plaster bust of Wagner. Wearing her hair cropped, like most women of the city, she gave lectures—as did many others—on the history of culture. There was a time, though, when, as a young woman enamored of the occult, she'd conjure up men with pink skin, and naked men kissed her in clouds of smoke. She often told the story of how she once found a mystical rose on her pillow and how it turned into evaporating slime. Like many of her compatriots, she loved to talk about her former wealth, about the lacquered carriage upholstered in quilted blue satin: how it would wait for her at the doorway while she descended the red-carpet staircase, how the passers-by would give way as she entered the carriage. "Young boys would gawk at me," she'd intone. "Men in winter coats with sealskin collars eyed me from head to toe. My husband, an elderly colonel, slept in the carriage, while the valet stood on the footboard in his cockade hat. We'd all be on our way to the Imperial Theater." At the word "Imperial," Teptyolkin would come to life, as if roused by something poetical. He'd see Averescu in a uniform fringed with gold traveling to meet Mussolini. He'd see them conferring about how to gobble up the Yugoslav state and how to resurrect the Roman Empire: Mussolini is marching on Paris. Mussolini conquers Gaul. Spain and Portugal join Rome of their own free will. The Academy in Rome is called into session to find a dialect to serve as a common tongue for the newly created empire. Among these academicians we find—Teptyolkin. Meanwhile, the landlady would go on jabbering on the edge of his bed until she remembered it was time for her to go to the Political Education Institute. Inserting her broad feet into her Tartar shoes, she'd shuffle off towards the door. Her name was Yevdokia Sladkopevtseva. She was the widow of a bandmaster. Raising his greying, dried-up head, Teptyolkin would follow her spitefully with his eyes. "Lacks noble breeding," he'd say to himself. "Sticks to me like a pimple and gets in the way of my work." He'd get up, button up his yellow Chinese robe (the one he bought at a flea market), pour himself a glass of cold, black tea, stir it with his pewter teaspoon and reach for a volume of Parny from the shelf. He'd then begin checking it against Pushkin. The window would open wide, a silvery evening would steal in, and Teptyolkin would have a vision: a tall, very tall tower, a city asleep, while he, Teptyolkin, is keeping vigil. "The tower represents culture," he'd think, "and I, Teptyolkin, am standing on its very summit." "Where are you ladies off to in such a hurry?" Teptyolkin asked, smiling. "Why don't you drop in on our
meetings sometimes? Just think: today I'll be delivering a report on a remarkable poet, and on Wednesday next I'll be giving a lecture on American civilization. You must have heard about all the miracles now taking place in America. Or haven't you? The ceilings are sound-proof, everybody chews aromatic gum, and the factory organ prays for everyone before work. Please, you must come!" Teptyolkin bowed from the waist and kissed their hands. Tapping their heels, the young ladies disappeared into the void between the buildings. No matter where Teptyolkin was—whether strolling in the garden above the river or playing whist on the green table or reading a book—you'd be sure to find Philostratus by his side. Philostratus's whole being bubbled over with inexpressible music. His beautiful, youthful eyes laughed under the wings of their eyelashes, and his long fingers, threaded with rings, held a stylus and tablet. Often would Philostratus walk alongside Teptyolkin and converse with him. "Observe," Teptyolkin would hear Philostratus saying—or so he thought—"Observe how the phoenix dies and how it is reborn." And Teptyolkin saw this strange bird with its feverish, feminine Oriental eyes. She was standing on a bonfire, smiling. At times Teptyolkin was visited by a dream: He is descending a lofty tower. Beautiful Venus is standing in the middle of a pond, a long sedge is whispering, the rising dawn is casting a golden hue over the tall sedge and over Venus's head. The chirping sparrows leap over the road. Marya Dalmatova shows up. She is sitting on a bench, reading Callimachus. She lifts up her eyes. They are full of love. "We are living amidst horror and desolation," she'd say.
On Avenue of the October Revolution two well-bred young men, Kostya Rotikov and Misha Kotikov, are exchanging lit matches while leaning against an iron railing. There was a time when young people no less noble than these would whip off a mazurka or a Hungarian dance late into the night. They'd hum along with the music as they danced. As is well known, in those days the avenue would not be completely deserted till past 3 in the morning, when the lanterns would go out. The men cruising the night and the women with swaying buttocks would then vanish into their quarters. But now it's only about 9 p.m. At least, the clock on the former Town Hall—now a third-class movie theater—shows 10 minutes to 9. Yet, the young men are nowhere near the former Town Hall. They are standing on the bridge beneath the horse that's rearing up its hind legs, a naked soldier by its side. At least that's how it looks to them.
The year 1916: It was on the Nevsky Prospekt and in the Western manner that the Unknown Poet spent his youth. Everything in the city seemed Western to him: the houses, the churches, the gardens. Even poor Lydia seemed poor Anne or poor Mignon in his eyes. Skinny, with violet eyes and with a blonde tuft of hair, Lydia wandered from cafe table to cafe table in tune with music in vogue at the time. Somewhat hesitantly, she'd sit down with the regulars, who treated her to café au lait, steaming chocolate with two biscuits or tea with lemon. Men in evening dress carrying a napkin under their arms addressed her familiarly as they passed. They bent down and whispered an obscenity in her ear. Young men didn't go to the men's room in this cafe for the usual reasons. Shutting the door behind them, they'd look around circumspectly, take out the stuff. Each would then spread it on his hand, inhale it, then, quickly turning pale, shake his head vigorously and return to the main hall, by then utterly transformed. For the Unknown Poet, it became a Lake Avernus, surrounded on all sides by cliffs overgrown with dense forests, and it was here that the shade of Apollonius had once appeared to him. The year 1907: A crowd of revelers was sauntering along. Children were sitting, reclining, standing in snow-white, light-blue and pink carriages. Lycée boys in love walked their lycée girl friends home. Flower vendors were selling hothouse violets smelling like cheap perfume and swaying narcissus. The bourgeoisie were returning from their morning outing to the islands in landaus upholstered in blue or brown cloth, in sightseeing coaches, in carriages harnessed to a pair of black or grey horses. You could catch a glimpse from time to time of the chins and noses of old women as their coaches flitted by. As the carriages drew near, the doorkeepers would rush up and open the carriage-door with great deference. The Unknown Poet often rode in just such a carriage. His mother, a pale, pensive woman, would be sitting with a box of candy on her lap, while the coachman's rump protruded from above. The little boy was around seven then. He loved ballet. He loved the bald heads of the men sitting in front no less than the strained elegance of everyone around him. He loved to watch his mother powdering her face before the mirror in preparation for the theater, buttoning up her spangled dress, looking at herself in the folding dresser mirror and sprinkling perfume on her handkerchief. Dressed in a white suit and white kid-leather boots, he waited for his mama to finish, then comb his hair and kiss him. The year 1913: Illuminated by a frozen, red sun, the family was seated at a round table. In the adjacent room the stove burned. You could hear the firewood crackling. Outside someone had built a snow mountain. Through the window you could see the children in the courtyard sliding down on their sleds from the top. After breakfast, the future Unknown Poet went with his tutor to Kopylov's bank office. Kopylov was the publisher of the journal Old Coins. In his office stood small cabinets made of oak with little removable shelves upholstered in dark-blue velvet. On this velvet lay the staters of Alexander the Great, the tetradrachmae of Ptolemy, gold and silver denarii of Roman emperors, coins from the Cimmerian Bosphorus, coins with the heads of Cleopatra, Zenobia, Jesus, scenes featuring mythological beasts, heroes, temples, tripods, triremes, palm trees; coins of every possible size, of every possible tint, of states once resplendent, of nations that had once astounded the world with their conquests or with their arts or with their heroic personalities or with a talent for commerce—but were no longer extant. The tutor sat on a leather sofa reading a paper while the little boy examined the coins. Outside it was getting dark, but on the counter a lamp burned under a green shade. It was here that the future Unknown Poet came to know the inconstancy of all things, it was here that he learned about the idea of death, about how to transport himself to other countries and to other nationalities. Just observe this head of Helios—the way it's tilted back. Observe its half-open, singing mouth compelling us to forget everything. Surely it'll accompany the Unknown Poet on his nocturnal wanderings. And look at this temple of Diana of Ephesus, look at this head of Vesta, or how about this flying chariot from Syracuse. And let's not forget the coins of the barbarians, those pitiful imitations with mythological subjects that have turned into mere ornament. Or the coins of the fanatical Middle Ages where, prompted by some detail, the sun breaks in suddenly through another life. More and more coin-boxes appeared to him. The tutor has finished reading the newspaper. Outside, the street lamps are burning. "It's time to go home," he says, "we don't want to be late for dinner." The coins just purchased drop into individual little envelopes and the little envelopes drop into one big envelope. Arriving home, the little boy would reach for a magnifying glass as enormous as a round window-pane. He'd then sit down before the table on his oak stool, spread out the coins he had just bought and set out on a journey in time. Until, that is, his father, clad in a Bukhara robe, would walk into the dining-room. The chambermaid would rush in to announce: "Dinner is served!" After dinner, his father would head for his study for an hour's nap on the carpeted sofa. The study was lined with bookcases holding magnificent books, the kind found in any family deeming itself among the intelligentsia: A Supplement to Niva, the most terrifying novels by Kryzhanovskaya, Count Dracula (who'll keep you awake all night!), countless works by Nemirovich-Danchenko, and foreign novelists in Russian translation. Scientific and scholarly books were also to be found on the shelves: A Cure for Sexual Impotence, What Every Child Needs To Know, The Tercentenary of the Romanoffs. At nine o'clock in the evening his father would don his uniform, sprinkle cologne on himself and go to the club. With his father gone, the future Unknown Poet would enter the study and sit down on the sofa. A map covered every inch of the rug. Gibbon rubbed elbows on the sofa with archaeology books of every kind. His mother played "A Maiden's Prayer" in the adjacent drawing-room. His younger brother was reading a Nat Pinkerton novel in his room. The tutor, humming a music-hall song, was putting on his boots in the Unknown Poet's room. He was about to have some fun after a hard day's work. In the kitchen, the chambermaid, neighing like a horse, was rocking on the lap of an officer's orderly. The year 1917: The Unknown Poet was sixteen and Lydia eighteen when they first met. At the time she visited the cafe only on occasion. Sometimes, she would announce that she was a lycée student and reminisce about her ride in a smart cab: the dead silence of the night, the houses sweeping past, the trees flitting by, the private room in the restaurant, the officers, the sound of the glasses, how she sobbed on the sofa, wiping her tears with the hem of her black apron. At other times, she would talk about her love for an aristocratic student and how he dumped her on his buddies. At still other times, she would say that she had been dishonored by a married man with a reputation for integrity in the community, who had a long grey beard and loved to stroll in the evening in the Summer Garden. The Unknown Poet tore himself away from his readings, from his ritual of arranging books on the shelves and of examining coins. It was past two in the morning. Passing the curtains that had been lowered to the floor, he climbed down the back staircase into the deserted courtyard, which was brilliantly lit by a huge suspended lantern. In consternation, the janitor let him slip through the gates and looked on as the lad ran off in the direction of Nevsky Prospekt. A light, driven rain was falling. Lydia was slouching against the entrance door. The satin-smooth cards that he had given to her as a present the night before were spread out on the porch. She was drowsy, her mouth half-open. The Unknown Poet sat down next to her, looked at her girlish face, at the snow melting all around and at the clock above his head. He then reached into his pocket for the gleaming white stuff and turned towards the wall. A peculiar sound resembling a protracted "oh" modulating into an "ah" seemed to drift through the streets. Like enormous shadows, the houses contracted and pierced the clouds. He lowered his eyes—the huge red figures of the lantern blinked on the pavement: 2 like a snake; 7 like a palm tree. The cards spread out on the porch attracted his attention. The figures on the cards came to life and entered into an elusive relationship with him. He felt attached to these cards, as an actor feels attached to the wings of a theater. He woke Lydia up and, in an ironic twist, began playing a game of "dunce" with her. The five cards quiver in his hand. So do her cards. Their eyes turn dark from the wind, at which point they face the wall. The rain turns into a soft melting snow. The Unknown Poet and Lydia are protected by the awning. The cards speak to him of sheer horror and desolation. Soon the city will be awake. "To the tea-house! To the tea-house! Quickly!" says Lydia. "I am frozen to the bone. What a damned night! Why didn't you come earlier and take me with you to a hotel?! I'd have slept like a log. Do you have any money? Maybe we can still find a room. I've been on the street three days already." "What are you talking about, Lydia?! You know all the hotels are filled up by five o'clock. No one will let us in anywhere." "Then let's go to the tea-house instead! I feel terribly depressed. My God, let's go to the tea-house!" He looks at her. Her face is completely white. Her pupils are dilated. How many years has he been sitting here? What's the meaning of this lantern, of this snow, what's the meaning of his appearing on the Nevsky Prospekt? Lydia sings, as she moves away from the entrance. A roué passes by. He looks at them both ironically. Lydia and the Unknown Poet walk under a shower of stinging snow. The cards lie forgotten on the porch. The tea-house is in full swing. Prostitutes in shawls and cotton dresses eye you brazenly and provocatively. The eyes of thieves on the lam pursue you from one corner of the tea-house to the next, their faces haggard and pale. Tea jars of an intolerably dawn-like color stand on round tables. The Unknown Poet and Lydia show up at the door. The night is gone. Avenue of the October Revolution went under a different name in those days. While the side streets had to settle for gas-lamps, Nevsky Prospekt—whose private houses rubbed elbows with the palaces, churches and buildings of officialdom—was decked out in dazzling, electric lamps. Through the window-panes and glass doors, you could see snow-white staircases covered with carpets of the most delicate hues, silk curtains and little tables made of every conceivable material, and, oh, yes, armchairs and sofas of every sort. Sometimes, young couples would sit in elongated hallways looking blankly all night into space under ceilings where cupids soared through the air. Sergei K. was sitting in his room. It was divided in the middle by bookcases filled with French books. In the dining-room, which retained traces of the eighteenth century, peace and tranquillity reigned: the members of the family, even old Grandma, had wandered off to their respective rooms after finishing their evening tea. Grandma was undoubtedly standing before her mirror, removing the headdress attached to her hair by an ornamental pin. Or smearing some sort of cream on her hands for the night. Or perhaps she was extricating herself from her corset with her chambermaid's help. Mother—I'll bet—was writing something to her friend in Paris or reading her girlhood album over again or loosening her hair before the dresser mirror. Her chambermaid was letting down the blinds. And Father—well, he was already on his way to the yacht club on Morskaya Street. All night long, he'd bend over a green table or else go to Cubas Restaurant, the favorite haunt of late night divas. The dining-room clock struck eleven o'clock. The door-bell rang. The Unknown Poet entered Sergei K.'s house. Then, the two friends left. The moon and the stars gleamed brightly above the city while, below, the snow crackled and snapped. The trolleys droned on, packed with hussars and shimmering with white light. Nameless characters peddled pornographic books and cards by the gates, as movie theaters beckoned nearby with their silver screens. Horse-cabs, carrying young couples, trotted along the road. Taxis revved up, ready for action. Women with painted faces huddled on the sidewalk or took short walks or did a little dance. The Unknown Poet came to a stop. "Remember last night, Seryozha?" he asked, turning his face—a towering forehead but, oh, what an atrophied jaw!—towards Sergei K. "Remember when the Neva changed into the Tiber, when we roamed through Nero's gardens and the Esquiline Cemetery? Remember Priapus's dim eyes haunting us everywhere? I saw new Christians today, but, tell me, dear Seryozha, who are they? I saw deacons, too. I saw officials distributing bread, I saw swarms of people smashing idols. So what do you think? What's the meaning of all this?" The Unknown Poet looked far off into the distance. On the sky he saw gradually unfold before him a horrifying, boarded-up, deserted city overgrown with grass. The friends walked along the illuminated, buzzing, clattering, humming, screeching, jangling, flashing, mischief-making street. The crowd surrounding them suspected nothing. The years 1918-1920: The Unknown Poet is standing on a mountain of snow on Nevsky Prospekt. Now he is hidden by the blizzard, now he is emerging again into the open. Behind him stands a void. Everyone has long since left. But he doesn't have the right to. He can't leave the city. Let everyone else flee, but he will stay and pay with his life, if need be, to preserve the lofty temple of Apollo. He looks around and sees a temple of snow taking form in the air—with himself standing above a crevice. The Unknown Poet and Sergei K. are walking on tiptoe on the carpeted lobby floor. For some time now, they have been feeling pain in the back of their heads. Policewomen are standing coquettishly at their posts, shelling sunflower seeds and exchanging insults with some characters dancing by the street-lamps. The dark night of late summer now pours over the sky. The city is no longer illuminated by a moon and one star but by a moon and a thousand bluish, reddish and yellowish stars. Ugly and barefoot, Lydia ran along the wooden tiles of this pavement. "What the devil!" she thought to herself, "my life is coming to an end. Where the hell am I gonna find enough money to buy stockings and shoes? I can't even pay for the stuff as it is!" She made a dash for the tea-house. "Go away!" said a man holding a napkin. He was pushing her away. "So, that's why you come here, ha? To play the hooker?! It's because of the likes of you that this place will be closed down!" The Unknown Poet and his friend emerge from behind the gates. "Let's go to the Summer Garden, Seryozha," he says. "We'll sit on the bench for a while." "Is that you?!" Lydia cries out. An instant later, she retreats. "Oh, excuse me," she rushes to add. "Didn't mean to get in your way." A patrol is closing in. Lydia leaps towards the gates of the nearest building as the young men disappear somewhere on the Nevsky Prospekt.
Flowers of love, flowers of intoxication . . .
I am sitting at the home of my friend, the well-known artist. His bed is three rooms down the hall. The room I am in juts out like a rotunda onto the street. It is now three o'clock in the morning. The electric bulbs attached to the trolley post below are burning away. The roofs of the buildings aren't visible from my window. They merge with the sky. I can feel the Neva flowing—light blue—far beyond. It is pitch-dark. Past two o'clock in the morning. The favorite hour for my heroes, when my Unknown Poet, with his sheaf of visions and talents, comes into bloom. I see him once again seeking intoxication in the pitiless frost, along the snowy potholes of the street and in the horrifying, numbing wind. He seeks it not as a pleasure but as a mode of knowledge, as a way of plunging into a holy madness, an "amabilis insania", in which a world accessible only to prophets is disclosed. The windows are closed, the buildings deserted. The holy madness eludes him more and more. The plane-trees, the date-palms and the cypresses are gone as are the porticos and water fountains. Spiritual freedom has gone with them, too. No more conversations under the open, black or golden sky. I see him bidding farewell to his friends amid the ruins of collapsing houses. Just look at one of them, watch him seated on a stone, the eyes of a madman darting in all directions. And now observe how another man is lying immobile on the ground. He feels that he is dead. And how about this third one who is clambering up the ruined staircase of a house open to the wind—to look down upon the city for the last time. Behold, the Unknown Poet is leaning against a column. A shattered capital wreathed in acanthus reaches right up to his knees. He hears the cock crowing in the neighboring house. He remembers cats sidling off to die in just such dilapidated buildings. One cat appears on the scene. As it struts along, it drags its hind legs along the ground. A second cat shows up, wet and trembling, and, losing its balance, falls from the staircase into the black funnel below. A third cat, with lackluster eyes, is looking for something. In vain. It struggles to curl up into a ball, struggles and gives up. It must be three o'clock in the morning by now. It's dark, totally dark. Downstairs, a woman is playing the piano. Yes, I am sure it's a woman. She is under the impression that her gentle lover is lying at her feet. I think she has loosened her hair. I open up Bartolomeo Taeggio's L'Humore, which is in the form of a dialogue, and read the arguments in praise as well as in condemnation of wine. And I read about the kinship between wine and poetry. I return to the first page, to a description of the vine harvest in the charming little village of Robecco. The women at the wine-presses are singing the praises of the precious vine. On the road we see peasants, carts and tubs brimming over with grapes or wine. Other villagers, carrying baskets and knapsacks, are moving away from the road in order to pick the fruit from the bushes. A party of sailors enters singing. Their guitars strum their way into the hearts of the lovelorn village girls. I remember a page from the novel by Longus: "Autumn was already in full swing, and the time for the harvest had come. Everyone was in the fields . . . " I suddenly catch a glimpse of Aphrodite's shadow through the window. I walk up to the window. Everything is so very quiet! The little bulbs attached to the cross-beams of trolley posts shed their deep yellow light on the street. And the passer-by—how he droops, how sadly he drags himself along the sidewalk! Where is he going? Perhaps my heroes are acquainted with him. Or perhaps it's one of my heroes who has somehow survived. Light is returning to the sky. The roofs of houses with their chimneys and lightning rods are now visible. On the streets you hear the clattering of hooves. A map from the time of the European war hangs on the wall behind me. Apparently, twelve or thirteen years ago, the entire family took turns pinning Russian, French, Italian and English flags all over the map. Everybody in the family took great pride in the successes of their army and mourned its retreats.
The heel-tapping young ladies disappeared into the void between the buildings. Teptyolkin just stood there and looked at the place where, only a moment before, they had held out their hands. He walked quickly, stumbling. He was in a pensive mood. "What do you think?. . . " Teptyolkin said absent-mindedly and stopped. The book salesman smiled and said: "You're always making fun of everything. Can't you greet me sometimes like a human being? Come on, sit down and let's have a little chat." Instead, Teptyolkin proceeded to examine the books hanging on the grille of the garden attached to the Mariinsky Hospital. "I'll bet if you had money, you'd have bought my entire collection by now," the street bookseller said and showed the books to Teptyolkin. They were indeed remarkable. The recent French translation of Marcus Aurelius, rather crudely put together, was bound in luxurious parchment and stamped in gold. A Zodiac Of Life filled a pocket book. The edges of its pages were trimmed in blue. The splendid ornamental design on the title page harked back to the time of the Late Renaissance. "Do you have The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius?" inquired Teptyolkin. "I'd like to buy it on credit." Booksellers gladly sold their books on credit to Teptyolkin. He was the kind of man one could sit and chat with. Teptyolkin looked for the Boethius in vain. "But how is one to reconcile this with the Unknown Poet's idea that Bolshevism is of momentous importance, that a situation has arisen similar to the first centuries of Christianity?" En route, Teptyolkin tried his best to extricate himself from this predicament. "A new religion always makes its initial appearance on the periphery of the cultured world," he reflected. "Christianity appeared on the periphery of the Graeco-Roman world in impoverished, melancholy, narrow-minded and spiritually lethargic Judea. Now take Islam. It was born among nomads and not in blossoming Yemen, where fountains gush, where the fruit of aromatic trees fills the air with stupor, where women, upon awakening, move their limbs voluptuously and yawn. Ugh! What unclean thoughts," Teptyolkin added distractedly. "You'd think I was dreaming of women." He fell to reflecting again. "Sometimes you dream of a woman's heaving breasts. Her dark eyes pierce your soul. You put your arms around the empty form, you lie still and wait and wait for something to happen." Teptyolkin saw his room, saw the rose that was given him the previous Wednesday by Marya Dalmatova. "Her life must be sheer terror," he said, thinking of Marya. "What terror! We, of course, are cultured people: we explain, we understand everything! Yes, we explain first, then we understand: words do the thinking for us. You are busy explaining something to someone, when, suddenly—hearing your own words—it all falls into place." And he remembered the Unknown Poet. He was passionately fond of him. The Unknown Poet could toss off a couplet, and, bingo, the lines would fall into place! How intelligent! Lines that speak of death and destruction and of a great passion—and they'd mourn the sun that is forever setting. It is the words themselves that do the thinking for the Unknown Poet. Oh, how cleverly Teptyolkin nursed the poems of the Unknown Poet! To him they were a veritable cornucopia of metaphors and meanings! State and country may have been collapsing all around him, but this pure-hearted young man was singing of the freedom of the spirit, singing secretly as if in shame, and everyone was listening, praising him for his obscure metaphors, for the radiance emerging from the juxtaposition of words. That same morning, the Unknown Poet imagined himself waking up in a brothel. Dressed like Hussars, Turks and Poles, women were sitting on the floor playing cards. The piano player, tossing his mane in the air, banged on the keyboard. Dragoons were pacing up and down, jangling their spurs. A lieutenant of the Cavalry was sitting on the sofa writing a letter in verse to his sister. "I am my own father," the Unknown Poet mused, glancing at the picture on the wall: a buxom woman in a resplendent, star-studded skirt was reclining on a sofa, her eyes rolled back. "I . . ." here the poet spread his arms in the air. "I am my father in the 1890's, in some provincial city, because the brothels of Petersburg are an entirely different affair: lions, marble staircases, doormen adorned with galloons, valets in silk trousers, a fifteen-piece orchestra and, of course, beautiful women in flowing evening gowns." "Fiddle-fiddly-do-do!" the orchestra played. The Unknown Poet thought he was his own grandfather: a huge, imposing man. He is sitting in a theater-box. A silken program guide, edged with lace, is resting on the partition. On the stage, Louis XIII is saying something to Richelieu. The wooden theater is surrounded on all sides by little wooden houses and by snow and more snow. . . . "Yeniseisk," thought the poet. "I am my grandfather, the mayor of Yeniseisk." He could feel the troika drawing near in the twilight. He heard—or so he thought—the sleigh bells from the porch, then the clattering of horse hooves, then the neighing and then the girls' voices: "Has the hall been set? Where are the valets? Why isn't the light on?" And he sees the valets coming out of the house with pomp and circumstance. Dance music booms out. Women with trailing dresses turn around. Outside the night is snowy. Snowy and quiet. He peers through the window: below is an alley lined with statues. In the distance, in the city, a blizzard hums: "The Devil take her!" said the Unknown Poet. "She was never my wife or mistress. How should I know whether she had syphilis?!" He got up angrily from the snow-white bed and went to the Hermitage to look at the statues. He entered the museum. He felt as though he were leaning over himself and singing: The Unknown Poet woke up. It was the 1st of May. "Fine," he thought."It's been four years since I've broken off with the night, with the blinking lights of the city, with the glimmering crowds of the night, with premonitions and prophecies."
Where are you, my radiant eyes?
Have you fled away into the alleys,
Into the dark corners of the streets?
Have you turned, have you choked
On a wave of blood?
On the porch a scoundrel
Blossoms like an apple tree.
He did not perish with you
Under the starry night.
You yelled, hapless girl,
You tore yourself away.
One fellow pulled your hair.
Another turned the knife
Deep in the wound.
Because of that cursed horror:
Syphilis.
And his friends are all rotten and decayed,
But not in the quiet of the cemetery.
One friend is swaying among the ruins,
Hanging from a rope in some house;
Another is bathing in the river,
Swimming under bridges, decomposing.
A third, in a room behind bars,
Exchanges insults with the insane.
What a strange character that Teptyolkin is!" the young ladies exclaimed, traipsing down Kirochnaya Street. "He must be a virgin! We've just got to get him married—otherwise, nothing good will come of him." "Hey, why don't I marry him off to you!" Marya Dalmatova said and laughed. "He'll kiss your feet, Natasha. I tell you, he'll work for you like an ox! In return, all you'll ever have to do is loll around naked all day flipping over the pages of novels." "But what I want, Marya, is love, love, love! I want flowers to light up every corner of the world—God knows how rotten everything is!" "Nothing to it! Come on, Natasha! Let's go have ourselves some fun! They'll show off their poems, pass the bottle around and give us a kiss or two. That's all!" "They are nothing but scoundrels, Marya, all of them!" Natasha said, cutting her friend off. "For goodness' sake! There's nothing to worry about!" Marya burst out laughing. "If one of them so much as feels up my dress, I'll stab him with my hat-pin! On the spot! Just watch him make a hasty retreat!" She took a broken hat-pin out of her purse and showed it to Natasha. "All right, all right! But I'm going just for your sake," declared Natasha. Then she added: "But are you sure we're not in danger?" "In danger? Are you kidding," exclaimed Marya. "Just do what I do. If he starts pestering you, just hit him in the crotch with your fist. I guarantee you he'll be as gentle as a lamb." They walked into the lobby. Svechin opened the apartment door for them. "Well, girls, at long last you're here!" Svechin said with a smile. He lit up a cigarette, then said: "We'll have lots of fun tonight. You'll see!" Hard on his heels came Asphodeliev. Clean-shaven, hands glistening from eau-de-cologne, he had on a morning coat and a shimmering pince-nez. Taking his time, he greeted everyone solemnly. He inquired of the girls whether they had taken a stroll through the Summer Garden or perchance penned some new poems. All four entered the room together. From afar a mummy-like creature got up, shook his long hair and bowed. "This is our friend Kokosha Shlyapkin," Svechin announced. "He is a poet, musician, painter and world traveler. Right now, he is busy making clay sculptures of scenes from the Revolution. A regular son-of-a-gun, I might add." Kokosha smiled. He was quite a character. Asphodeliev set about courting Marya, while Svechin pursued Natasha. Kokosha took turns sitting next to one couple, then the other. He was apparently bored. After supper, Kokosha, the universal artist, sat down at the piano and improvised. In the adjoining room Asphodeliev, who had his sights set on a dark little corner, was dragging Marya onto a sofa. In a state of languor induced by the wine, she let him kiss each and every one of her fingers as well as the back of her neck, but pushed his hands and chin away. Asphodeliev tried to win her over philosophically. "What the hell do you need your virginity for?" he whispered in her ear. Swinging the fatty layers of his posterior around, he clasped her to his bosom. "Don't tell me you're tempted by the virtues of the philistines?! Can't you see I'm offering you the fabulous life of bohemia, a true aristocratic life?" And Asphodeliev dropped his pince-nez. "A girl is like an innocent sparrow," he continued. "A girl smells of a fresh roll. A woman is like a flower, like a fragrance. And what is a family, I ask you, if not bourgeois philistinism, yes, petty bourgeois philistinism. You'll be on your knees all day long darning—that is, when you are not slaving away in the kitchen." He made a lunge in her direction but was stopped in mid-flight. "We poets," Asphodeliev continued, shifting the weight of his body, "are a spiritual aristocracy. A poet has need of life-experiences. How. . . by Jove, how could you ever hope to write poems if you've never known a man?" Meanwhile, Svechin was dragging Natasha across the room. She was giggling and drunk out of her mind, and her head drooped to one side. She covered her mouth with her hand to push back the nausea that was welling up in her. Svechin led her into the bathroom, paced up and down excitedly outside, then pulled her into the last room of the apartment and dropped her on the bed. Natasha buried her face in the pillow and fell asleep. Whistling away, Svechin started disrobing. He took his shirt off and slowly untied his shoelaces. "Let her fall fast asleep!" he said to himself. He took off his shoes, lined them up neatly by the bed, then put his hand over her mouth. She made an effort to fight him off but failed. Through the fingers of his hand she saw the light of the lamp and cried. He sat down on the edge of the bed to catch his breath. Natasha raised her head, felt her breasts with her hand and glanced at Svechin's back. Then, falling back, she started crying again. Svechin turned around, slapped her heartily on the back and said : "So what does it matter? Sooner or later. . ." "How are things going?" he asked Asphodeliev, entering the living-room. Asphodeliev was frowning. Marya laughed. Svechin led Asphodeliev to the window. "You're a fool!" he said. "Where is that rogue Kokosha?" "Left hours ago. He got fed up with waiting." "Your Kokosha is a damn fool," said Svechin. "Another minute and he could have sneaked into the bedroom while she was still knocked out. And I kept telling him to wait!" "I suppose I'll go in then in his place," said Asphodeliev, his face beaming. He adjusted his pince-nez and headed towards the bedroom. Svechin walked over to Marya. "Where is Natasha?" Marya demanded. "She'll be back in a jiffy," Svechin replied, holding her back. Marya understood. She was furious at Natasha. "What a fool!" she thought and sat down. Svechin tried to work on her. "Where is Natasha? Where is she?" Marya reiterated. Finally, she got up and went looking for her friend. Asphodeliev entered. There was a smile on his face. "Your Natasha is drunk out of her mind," he said. "She'll be here any minute now." The rising sun was visible through the window. The two girls left without saying good-bye. That very morning Kovalyov was sitting before the window. "Oh, there goes Pierrot. Look at him carrying Columbine off. And now look! The old husband is lolling under the lamp, while his young wife is on her feet looking for fleas! . . . And, what do you know, I think I see a naked girl stretched out on the operating table with the grey-haired doctor bent—oh, ever so thoughtfully!—over her." So many, many memories. The Pierrot and Columbine was his favorite postcard. General Golubetz's favorites were the flea hunt and the operating table. Kovalyov was carrying gravel in a wheel-barrow to the barge when Natasha, returning from a party, happened to walk by. With her nose buried in her collar, she didn't notice him. And he was overjoyed that she didn't. After all, he, Kovalyov, was no common laborer. Sure, he was loading and unloading gravel but only to tide him over! Soon he'll be doing real work. With Natasha out of sight, Kovalyov sat down on the wheel-barrow, lit up a cigarette and reflected. He reached into his lunch box, took out a slice of raisin bread and devoured it. He remembered Easter, cathedral bells, love songs. "It's nothing. I'll pull myself out of it," he declared. "I'll become a human being again if it kills me! If only I could crack the construction union!" And he started thinking about the union, much as earlier he had thought about the Cross of St. George. "By God, I'll make it to the top yet!"
Puffing on a cheap cigar, former General Golubetz was going over the music score when Natasha, his daughter, walked into her room. She had just returned from a party. Being in a mood for a chat on this spring morning, the General got up and followed Natasha. Stopping at the door of her room, he then and there launched upon his anecdote. "The Commandant is sitting by the window," the General began, "when his eyes fall on a certain lieutenant from Regiment X. He sees that the lieutenant is without his obligatory sword. 'Ivan!' the Commandant barks, summoning his day-orderly. The orderly enters. The Commandant points out the offending officer. A minute later, the officer shows up. His sword is in place. Seeing the sword, the Commandant is perplexed. 'Excuse me, Lieutenant,' he says, 'I don't think we've been introduced. Have you been in our city long?' After this courteous exchange, the Commandant dismisses the lieutenant. A minute later, the Commandant is once again sitting by the window. He sees the lieutenant. Once more, he is without his sword. 'Ivan,' the Commandant hollers a second time, 'call the lieutenant here!' The lieutenant walks in. His sword is in place. Utterly flustered, the Commandant asks the officer to convey his greetings to his regimental commander. The lieutenant leaves. A minute later, the Commandant is seated once again before the window. The same lieutenant is parading up and down and, yes, without his sword! He summons his orderly a third time. 'Ivan,' the Commandant shouts, 'bring the lieutenant back!' The officer returns, his sword firmly in place. Totally confounded, the Commandant invites the lieutenant to an evening game of whist. The young officer leaves. Once again the Commandant is sitting by the window. The offending lieutenant walks past without his sword. 'Liza, Elena!' he calls out to his wife and daughter. Pointing to the officer in the window, he demands: 'For God's sake, tell me! Is he carrying a sword or isn't he? I'm going out of my mind!' 'No, he isn't!' wife and daughter reply in unison. 'And I say that he is!' the Commandant yells in a rage. 'The lieutenant is carrying a sword!'" General Golubetz paused for effect. "And I'll bet you'll never guess where the lieutenant got the sword in the first place," he said to Natasha. "From the Commandant himself! Where else!" General Golubetz withdrew from Natasha's door to the dining-room, where he sat down to study the score. Next to him were his wife and a samovar. While the General played the piano at a movie theater, his wife sewed marquisette dresses for the market. Behind them—in her room—was their only daughter, a thin, giggling child. She was a student at the university. When she saw Mikhail Kovalyov off to the war in 191_ , Natasha thought to herself: "My hero! My warrior!" Returning home, she wept: "They'll kill him. I just know they'll kill him." She was fifteen years old then. You couldn't really have called her a giggling child at the time, though she had already acquired by then the habit of smiling on appropriate and inappropriate occasions alike. This was the smile of bashfulness. Mikhail Kovalyov, her fiancé and a cornet of the Pavlograd Hussar regiment, went off to war as if to a parade. The fields and forests flew by as he stood looking out the window. He saw the face of his betrothed and the coveted Cross of St. George. But a week after arriving at the regiment, Mikhail was offered the position of cook by the soldiers. "So that's what heroism is all about," he thought. He hid in the forests outside Petersburg for a year, then landed at the Red front, where he served as an assistant to the Inspector of the Cavalry. He cursed the Reds at every opportunity but served them nonetheless with honesty. After demobilization, Mikhail found himself in Petersburg. By this time, though, Natasha's ardor had cooled. The years of hunger had transformed her. She had become high-strung. After spending some time at a certain theatrical school—with every Tom, Dick and Harry making a grab for her private parts—she found herself pacing back and forth in the "Bois de Boulogne" hallway of the university, where she would sneak in a cigarette or two. Mikhail Kovalyov rarely got to see Natasha after the Revolution. His penury, his inability to find a job—he had no specialized training—were a profound blow to his dignity and drove him to the brink of despair. Still, he always believed that one day he'd find a job and marry Natasha. On the first day of Easter of each year, he would put on his red Hussar trousers with galloons color of gold, the boots with hussar rosettes, his service jacket—brought out of the dresser for the occasion—and, finally, the monogrammed golden shoulder-straps stored under the floor. He'd dress quickly, very quickly, shove his spurs into his pocket and rush over to see Natasha. On his shoulders he'd wear a greatcoat burned through and through. It had seen much action during the Civil War against the Whites. Year in and year out, Mikhail would reenact this scene. He'd rush up the stairs. Her former Excellency, the General's wife, would be sitting in her room reading a book. He'd go in, exchange Easter greetings with Natasha, eat a tiny portion of Easter cream-cheese and a slice of cake. Natasha would then sit down at the shaky piano and sing something in her thin voice. She'd open her pitiful mouth and glance in Mikhail Kovalyov's direction. She was sad. She no longer loved him. He had become vulgar in her eyes. Sometimes, Mikhail would get up and ask Natasha to play "Oh, the chrysanthemums have faded long ago." Standing right next to her, his mouth open like hers, he'd start singing off-key. At times he'd sing: "All the girls adore it!" or: "Oh, you beauties of the cabaret, love is a delight for hearts that play." Oh, that was such a beautiful evening, he thought, sauntering home at night through the renamed and newly lit streets. He walked among the pointed helmets of Red Army soldiers, among leather jackets and leaping signboards.
True, the development of an idea calls for poetry based on science," Teptyolkin mused. It was the day after his lecture, and, lo, Teptyolkin was stretched out in bed. "Yet, here we have a thoroughly obscure poet who summons up a new world for us through the juxtaposition of words. And what do we do? We take his world apart, decompose it, translate it into prose and strip it of all its imagery. Generations that come will assimilate the fruits of our labor, but they will never feel the luxuriance oozing from his images of this new world. To them, his poetry will seem ordinary and pitiful. To us, though, his poetry is accessible only with the greatest effort and then only to a few. "Years will pass. Our age will pass, and everything will have changed: The Unknown Poet will be mocked and laughed at. He'll be called a barbarian, a madman or an idiot for vandalizing our beautiful language. Pupils will scribble off horrid sonnets to their female classmates, office boys will declare their love to typists while filing invoices, the directors of trusts and the representatives of local trade union committees—all will intone: 'How degenerate their age was! But then, what could you expect from such lazy bums? Poetry ought to convey ideas, not images! It ought to march to the tune of science and take its cue from inventions like the telegraph or the radio. Why not write about them?' they'd say. 'Why not glorify our culture?' "Be that as it may, the Unknown Poet enjoys renown, however transitory, amongst us," Teptyolkin thought. He sat upright, his feet solidly on the floor: "As a matter of fact, young ladies are already pasting his photograph into his books, scholars are rushing to shake his hand, and everywhere students are hanging his portrait over their boring books. Were he to die this very day, he could count on no less than forty people to bring up the rear of his coffin. To a man, these devotees would eulogize him as a cunning Odysseus who struggled against his age, who fled the clutches of the sea of sociology to seek refuge on the island of Circe or Art." Teptyolkin peered through the window to see whether he had arrived yet. Yes, yes! The Unknown Poet was heading this way. He saw him waving his hat and striking the ground with his cane. He was carrying his latest manuscript in his hand. "How splendid! Now I'll have a chance to feast on far-off shores," Teptyolkin thought, rushing to unlock the door. They exchanged kisses and immediately proceeded to lambaste their contemporaries. Figuratively, if not literally, they spit on the little Pioneers trooping past their window. "Just look at this new generation of theirs," the Unknown Poet said sneeringly. "Not a trace of humanism in them. True sons of a future medieval age, fanatics and barbarians—that's what today's kids are. The light of the humanities has never penetrated their benighted souls." "Yes, I see what you mean," Teptyolkin joined in. "Nothing but filth everywhere. Yes, nothing but slime." He then added: "They're savages every one of them!" They sat down. "There never was anything but filth and slime, nothing but! They're all swine," Teptyolkin went on. He was in a meditative mood. "In my mind, I see White consular officials defacing our diplomatic buildings abroad. Before our ambassador has a chance to settle in, these Whites tear up the wallpaper, spit at the ceiling above, and—to crown it all—rip open the parquet floor. All this when they should be leaning back before the fireplace to admire for the very last time the fine tapestry hanging on the walls or taking a stroll through the rooms and the adjoining garden." "There is no point in philosophizing," declared the Unknown Poet evasively. "Both of us—you through literature, I through art—have experienced every kind of death. Therefore, death can never really surprise us. Spiritually speaking, a man of culture inhabits not one but many countries. He lives not in one epoch but in many. He can elect any form of death and does not grieve when death at last catches up with him. Overcome by ennui, he pronounces: 'So, we meet again!' It all seems so ridiculous to him." Teptyolkin was sad. He walked up to the window, frowning. "How gloriously sun-tanned they are—these Pioneer kids," Teptyolkin thought and broke into a smile. He did not know why but he felt happy and refreshed, as if a stream of air, bearing the sun on its back, had burst into the room. "The world is young again," he thought. At that very moment, Kostya Rotikov walked into the room. "Your poetry is stunning," he said, turning to the Unknown Poet. "Impeccably Baroque!" There was something quite peculiar about Kostya. His every move spoke of elegance. He had dropped in on Teptyolkin today in order to spirit the Unknown Poet away and discuss the subject of bad taste with him, i.e. to consider the question of junk as a genre of art. For some time, Kostya had been collecting tasteless and pornographic materials. He and the Unknown Poet often scoured the market-places of St. Petersburg for ash-trays. The obverse of such an ash-tray would be decent enough, but, if you turned it over, you would discover something quite naughty. For example, one side might show a lady followed on foot by a smiling gentleman, while the reverse would. . . Kostya Rotikov's interest in postcards was not confined to pornography as such. He also bought up decent postcards that were nonetheless positively revolting: A red-cheeked, mustachioed gentleman out to dinner with his date is pinching her foot with his boot. Or: a girl with hair rolled up in a bun is playing on a harp. Or: a naked nymph with a beer mug in her hand is fleeing from a man in a Tyrol suit. Teptyolkin breathed a sigh of relief after they left. Surveying his room, he found himself thoroughly pleased. He was as pleased with the ash-tray decorated with little flowers (it was, of course, for his friends—Teptyolkin himself didn't smoke) as he was with the flower vase showing an Arab woman bent over a pitcher. He was delighted, too, with the photos from his childhood: Here is six-year old Teptyolkin chasing after a butterfly with a net! Here is eight-year old Teptyolkin eating his dinner! And, look! Over there is ten-year old Teptyolkin sitting under the Christmas tree clad in a knight's armor. And that's not all! Here is his mother and here are his brothers and his sisters and his friends! And, oh, here is a picture of The Dream! Glancing at the summer rocking chair, Teptyolkin discovered that it was just as comfortable as the Voltaire armchair. Then, deciding to resume the principal work of his life, he opened his trunk. It was always covered with a plush, green tablecloth and bore the image of God knows what! He reached deep into the trunk and brought out his notebook. Two entries appeared on the first page: "Hierarchy of Meanings" and "Introduction to the Study of Poetry." This was followed—on the bottom of the second page (Teptyolkin was very fond of originality)—by his dedication to "MY ONE AND ONLY" and by a photograph of The Dream. The third page bore the Roman numeral "I", while on the fourth page—in the middle—appeared the single word: "Foreword." On the fifth page. . . The treatise begins on solid ground. The main text is interspersed with the annotations of distinguished contemporary linguists. Written in French, these observations are offered without Russian translation. (This treatise is meant for true scholars, not for the dull-witted). The main text also seems to be penned in a foreign tongue, but with Russian inflectional endings. There is a hint here of possible new definitions for such concepts as "Romantic" and "Classical." Here, too, the author speaks of the poetic technique whereby time present takes on the coloring of time past and time future. And there is more. For example, Teptyolkin explodes the absurd notion that meaning inheres within the narrow compass of a word alone. The aesthetic, on the other hand, is defined as a phantasm, as the harmonization of nature and history. "Any real artist," thought Teptyolkin, "who picks up this book in earnest won't be able to put it down. The pathos of these pages would exert its magical influence on him. After all, a work of art ought never to be considered impersonal. On the contrary, it is, in principle, always personal. I do not have in mind the artist's name but his personality as reflected in the artifact."
Art is rapture, an objective phase of existence. In the aesthetic there is neither nature nor history.
— from Teptyolkin's Hierarchy of Meanings The curious artist will soon discover the dominant leitmotif that runs through every page of this book, namely, that art is a rapturous state of being, with fantasy as its objective phase. Surely, the reader will forgive Teptyolkin his preposterous language, his French annotations, the furnishings of the room and, indeed, the photograph of The Dream—riding off in a smart cab, a hat and parasol in full view.
Sporting white pants, black coat and felt hat, Kostya Rotikov was making his way through the marketplace. He had been at it for a full two hours. Tall and stocky, he bent over the junk heap before him, loosening it fastidiously with his stick. He was hunting for pornography. He stopped before a group of women. "What's the matter?" these scrap iron dealers insist. Nursing their teacups, they bark: "Why are you ransacking through everything? . . . Must you throw everything all over the place?" Kostya blushes, then leaves. Standing before an antique dealer at the other end of the market, the Unknown Poet examined an ancient, shaggy Venus that conjured up the figure of a witch: With one hand she was clasping a large-headed cupid while with the other she held a balalaika. Her loins were wound in Mongolian cloth, her breasts were sagging, her head was marked—to the right and to the left—with the sign of her sex: Svechin walks up to the Unknown Poet and says: "Did you know that Kokosha Shlyapkin has a stall right here in the market? Would you believe—that slime is peddling a picture showing a Red Army soldier dancing on the chest of an officer! The audacity of the man—sketching miniature medallions of Lenin and selling them to every Komsomol girl. . . . By the way, have you run into any college girls lately? . . . Don't mind telling you that I get a real thrill popping their cherry. In fact, while you were out yesterday taking in the May Day parades—yes, I know, I know, you were actually perched on some balcony—right?—and spitting down below—well, anyway, believe it or not, I scored with Natasha, if you know what I mean. . . " The former artillery officer completed the sentence with the appropriate gesture. The Unknown Poet felt uneasy. He remembered Natasha when she was a little girl—in her white dress and pigtails, dancing away at the Pavlovsk children's ball. "So that's where you two are, my good friends," Teptyolkin exclaimed, stretching out his hands, "you must be talking about literature! I'll bet. No, no, far be it for me to interfere. No, I most assuredly won't!" He bowed and left. At long last, Kostya Rotikov found the match-box he was looking for and left. Svechin left, too. As he walked away, he peeked under the women's hats. Leaning against the wall, former society ladies were now peddling a whole miscellany of trinkets. One of them flaunted a monogrammed teaspoon, another a worthless old boa, a third two wine-glasses shimmering with colors, a fourth a rag doll of her own making, a fifth a corset of the 1900's. Last but not least, a grey-haired crone was selling off her hair, that is, the hair she had saved from her early youth and now gathered into tresses. And, oh, yes, there was a certain young woman—relatively speaking, of course—who was offering the worn-out boots of her late husband.
.
You are doing me a great wrong," the Unknown Poet once told me. "You're ruining my life's work. I've tried so hard as a poet to show the tragedy of it all, the fact that we were once so radiant. You, on the other hand, are defaming us in the eyes of posterity." I looked at him. "If you think we've kicked the bucket, you are grievously mistaken," the Unknown Poet said with a touch of affectation in his voice. "Not on your life! We are a breed apart—destined to emerge anew in each generation. No, we cannot die. We are inevitable." I sat down on a bench next to him. "There's nothing worse than a professional man of letters," he said, moving away. "And that's exactly what you are!" "You're mad!" I muttered under my breath. The Unknown Poet looked at me and said: "Just because I don't see eye to eye with my contemporaries doesn't give you the right to call me mad." I was shamefaced. So maybe he is not so mad, after all. Silence. Pricking up his ears, the Unknown Poet strained to hear the rustling of the leaves. Young Communists and their girl friends walked past. "No, he is mad!" I said to myself. "I know, sometimes I'm not quite all there," said the Unknown Poet, apparently guessing what was on my mind. "It's just my way of dissolving into the totality of Nature." He got up and shook my hand. "It's a real pity," he said, "that you live in the same world that you describe." Teptyolkin walked up to him. They exchanged gestures graciously, which is to say, they refrained from slapping each other on the back. I watched them turn into an alley. Then I walked on past the mosque and got on a trolley. "But you are out of your mind! Yes! You're stark raving mad!" I thought. I entered my apartment, sharpened a pencil. "Yes! Yes!" I said. "I must find out what those two are doing at this very moment! I'll bet they are up to their necks in some dirty business again." I twirled my mustache, put my key in my pocket, checked to make sure I had pencil and paper on me and left. It was a white night. The columns jutted out in twos, in threes, in fours. A woman dressed like a nurse came up to me. "My name is Tamara," she said. "So where is your white satin quilt?" I inquired. "You know what I mean—the quilt woven from expensive Stoby cloth, from Indian calico, from Giland silk? Where is the silken, violet pillow and the golden veil with the dangling tassel?" She fixed her lorgnette directly on me and declared: "You stink of beer, my good sir, but, surely, you are clean as a whistle. Come on, let's go to my place!" "Thanks," I replied, "but I think I'll take a rain check on that. I'm frightfully busy just now." "No problem! No problem!" she hurriedly rejoined, "we can do it just as easily here as anywhere. Just pull over to the side, sir." When she saw that I wouldn't, she cried out: "So you think you're some highfalutin' man of letters. Ha! You're all nothing but scoundrels, good-for-nothing beggars! Do you hear?! I'm keeping a certain Vertikhvostov alive. In return for that, he recites to me his poems about syphilis! He likes to compare himself to a prostitute. . . He calls me his bride." "Go away, darling!" I said, "please go away! Can't you see I'm not a man of letters? I'm just a busybody." She followed me almost as far as Victims of the Revolution Square, sat down on a bench and wept. "What the devil are you crying for?" I asked. "Are you missing your ermine coat, is that it? Or your coat lined with fur from Karakum and adorned with pearls? Or your cape of Khorassan cloth or a chess set made of walrus tusks or turquoise rings from Nystadt and amber jewelry boxes?" "How I'd love to ride on a bicycle. Didn't I tell you I was one of Colonel Babulin's steeds? Oh, to be surrounded by all those darling officers!" Only then did I realize that she was totally drunk. "A drunken broad!" I said to myself and quickened my pace. It was well past one in the morning when I arrived at Teptyolkin's apartment building. The janitor let me in. I entered through the dilapidated wing of the building and positioned myself right across from Teptyolkin's window. Seated before a kerosene lamp on the table before them, Teptyolkin and the Unknown Poet were arguing vehemently, that is, when they weren't reciting something. Now and then, the Unknown Poet would get up and pace the floor. "What are they reciting?" I wondered. "What are they talking about? . . . Looks like they're sneering at the contemporary world again, as usual." "I think," said the Unknown Poet, getting up, "that ours is a heroic age." "Incontestably heroic!" Teptyolkin asserted. "I think the world is being shaken up as it hasn't been since the first centuries of Christianity." "I'm convinced of it," replied Teptyolkin. "What a spectacle unfolds before us," the Unknown Poet observed. "What a defining moment we're living in," Teptyolkin whispered in delight. "Anyway, it's time for me to go!" said the Unknown Poet, moving away from the window. "I hope you don't mind if I take your Dante with me." "Of course not. Go ahead!" replied Teptyolkin. The Unknown Poet walked up to the table, closed the book and put it in his pocket. He then took leave of Teptyolkin. I left soon afterwards, too. As I walked briskly through absolutely deserted streets, I remembered how I too had once looked upon the Unknown Poet as the Pythian Oracle of St. Petersburg.
One day, the Unknown Poet was giving a reading at a club named for Kruzhalov. A bearded man in a cotton shirt danced around him. He was drunk. In his ecstasy, through tears of joy, he declared: "Oh God! Have you ever heard such genius! All my life I've been dreaming of poems like these!" The young ladies in the audience applauded in unison. The Unknown Poet was their friend. Reeking with the stench of vodka, the man in the cotton shirt shook the poet's hand and said: "For God's sake, you must come by and see me. My last name is September." Fumbling in his pocket, the Unknown Poet took out several scribbled pieces of paper and jotted down the address in the appropriate blank space. "I've just come back from Persia. You must come and see me. I haven't heard real poetry in so long," said the man in the cotton shirt. The following day, the Unknown Poet went to see September. September lived in a different part of town, in a so-called income-generating house, which is to say, in a tall house built around a courtyard that was narrow as a well. While the street apartments were spacious and equipped with all the amenities, those in the wings and along the back alleys were small and relentlessly monotonous in their repetition of a set pattern. The Unknown Poet rang the door-bell. He was greeted by September himself. The host, now sober, was wearing tall boots and a clean shirt gathered at the waist by a belt. In the middle of the first room stood a table on which a tablecloth had been spread. The table held plates with leftovers. Four bentwood chairs, warped by the rain, surrounded the table on every side. A single nail groaned under the combined weight of a decrepit brown coat and a blouse. The room was split evenly by a dresser, behind which stood September's conjugal bed. The Unknown Poet put away hat and cane—the latter adorned with an episcopal stone—and took a long look at September, for whom he felt a genuine liking. He knew a great deal about him already. He knew that he had spent two years in an insane asylum seven years before. He knew also of the hurly-burly in which he lived. "I'm still giddy from yesterday," September said. "You know, before I was committed to a mental asylum, during my confinement, and later, in Persia, I used to imagine poems in which I had died many times, in which I'd lived many lives before." The Unknown Poet looked around the room and said: "Go on! Read me some of your poems." "No, no, later. . . Here is my wife." From behind the dresser emerged the slim figure of a woman. Next to her stood a handsome, well-groomed seven-year-old boy. "This is Edgar, my little rabbit!" September said. He pointed out the Unknown Poet to the boy and said: "Do you see that man over there, sonny? He is an extraordinary poet." "That's Pushkin?" little Edgar asked, his eyes opening wide. September led the Unknown Poet into his room. A very thin pillow served as a headrest to a narrow bed covered by a violet blanket with black, horizontal stripes. This bed was reserved for September's use. In the middle of the bed lay a manuscript scribbled all over with crossed-out words. A glass and a two-ounce pouch of cheap tobacco, recently opened, stood on the window-sill. Against a wall papered with rose patterns stood a chair and a black desk. September and the Unknown Poet sat on the bed. "Why did you have to come here, of all places?!" the Unknown Poet asked. He glanced out the window, then continued: "This city is death itself. Why did you leave the other shore, where you had money—and your wife's respect—where they published you, where you wrote your so-called Futurist poems? Here in St. Petersburg you won't write a single line." "But what about your poems?" September interjected. "My poetry? . . ." the Unknown Poet paused, "may not be poems at all. Maybe that's why they have the impact they do. For me, they are a type of allegory, a special kind of material in need of an interpreter." "I don't quite understand. . ." pleaded September. He started pacing the floor. "I never got past elementary school. Then I went wacko. When I got out of the asylum, I began writing Symbolist poems, even though I knew nothing about Symbolism. Later, by chance, I came across the stories of Edgar Allan Poe. I was shaken to my foundations: I could have sworn that I had written them myself. It's only recently that I've become a Futurist. . ." He paused, lifted the edge of the blanket, hauled out a wooden box from beneath the bed, opened it, took out a manuscript and read aloud: "A mental collapse at times leads to a greater refinement of soul," the Unknown Poet thought while his host recited his poem. He looked into September's eyes and mused: "It's a pity that he can't control his madness." "I wrote this poem," September said, pacing the room, "before I was dismissed from the sanitarium. I understood the poem then, but now I don't have the faintest idea. . . it's just plain drivel." He bent down and brought a few more poems out of the box. Then he straightened his back and began reading aloud once again. In the general rhythmic chatter of his recitation you might have detected an occasional, nervous image. But, on the whole, these lines were pretty feeble. Sensing this, September squatted down and began rummaging—in a state of embarrassment—through his trunk. At last, he pulled out his books of poems, the ones published in Teheran. They too were worthless. "Tea is ready!" September's wife announced. She was standing in the middle of the door. "Don't forget to invite your guest, Pyotr!" "In a minute! In a minute!" September barked back. In utter desperation, he started reciting his recent, Futurist poems at breakneck speed. The Unknown Poet sat on the bed in a state of near despair. "Here is a man," he thought, "who had been blessed with madness but who was utterly incapable of controlling or understanding it or of putting it to the service of mankind." A cool night breeze was already blowing through the window. September and the Unknown Poet stepped into the adjoining room. Pink, round crackers were lying on a plate. Diminutive and swarthy and somewhat wrinkled, September's wife served the tea and crackers with great dispatch. And how she talked and talked! Finally, the Unknown Poet took notice. "You agree with me, don't you?" she demanded. "It was sheer madness for us to come here. Life here is pure horror. You should see his parents' place. They live on the shore of Lake Baikal. They are peasants, you know—if only you could see their house, crammed with goodies from wall to wall! That's where we should have gone to!" The kerosene lamp burned faintly on the table. His head buried in his arms, his teacup pushed aside, seven-year-old Edgar was now fast asleep. "My little rabbit," September whispered. He bent down and kissed his son. A pause. "You'll be the death of me and my son, yet!" September's wife insisted. "We've got to leave this place! The sooner the better!" She rose from the table and paced all over the room. It was late into the night when the Unknown Poet descended the stairs. Hearing the dying echoes of his own footsteps on the deserted street, the Unknown Poet stopped and leaned on his cane, which was adorned with a large, episcopal amethyst. He thrust out his shoulder-blades and paused to reflect. He so very much wanted to be the leader of the insane—of all of them. He longed to become their Orpheus. He would have gladly plundered the East and the South for the sake of the insane, wrapping their sad misadventures in the falling and rising folds of rich, holy vestments. In his hatred, he raised his cane threateningly in the air. How he ached to hurl his cane at sleeping book-keepers and variety show entertainers, in fact, at anyone who was not—in his eyes—convulsed by some excruciating agony! "Help! Help!" a girl's voice seemed to ring out from the first floor. At a loss, but immeasurably strengthened by his anguish, the Unknown Poet ran—no!—limped up the staircase, tried the door, then rushed down and plunged headlong through the window. His eyes stopped in their orbits, and his neck tensed up. "Take that!" Clutching the back of someone's head, the Unknown Poet started pounding on it with both fists. This someone quickly fought him off. The Unknown Poet grabbed the man's throat. The man pushed him off. The Unknown Poet picked up a heavy chair and struck hard. A lull. At the feet of the Unknown Poet lay Svechin. There was no sign of a woman. "I'll be damned!" the Unknown Poet thought, coming to his senses. "The devil knows what this is all about!" The whole apartment came to life: Doors banged, feet stomped, the Unknown Poet frowned, somebody ran off to get a cop. The policeman's report stated that a friend of Svechin broke in through the window and attempted to kill him in his sleep. "How strange life is!" thought the Unknown Poet. "The sensations of childhood remain vividly with us. There was a time when I considered a woman a most extraordinary creature, whom no man ought ever to offend, and for whom a man should sacrifice everything. Some of these pale faces and flowing tresses and clear voices still echo in my mind. So maybe I have been hating Svechin subconsciously all this time. How else account for the fact that I actually hallucinated a girl's voice?" The window had been boarded up. Behind the planks was a grating. Above, one could make out a narrow strip of cloudy sky. On one bed sat the Unknown Poet, in the other lay an aging prisoner. Svechin was astounded by this turn of events more than anyone else. He never could figure out why things had happened the way they did. He'd shrug his shoulders as he walked on, his head covered in bandages. The public defender couldn't get anything whatsoever out of the Unknown Poet. "I have nothing to say to my contemporaries," the Unknown Poet said aloud to himself. "The hell with explanations!" And he walked from the window to the door. Medical experts found him thoroughly normal. He was given a one-year suspended sentence.
The whole world is moving in trembling circles.
It burns with a deep greenish light.
As I left my house, I saw a cliff,
A ship and a woman above the sea.
Lovers stroll along the Pryazhka River in pairs —
Their faces are sticky. So are the flowers.
The lofty eyes of your lofty soul
Are fixed forever on my soul.
For some time now—a good two years behind the rest of Europe—everyone in our city (that is, St. Petersburg, not Leningrad) had become infected with the teachings of Oswald Spengler. Tall, spindly youths, young ladies with heads like birds, paterfamilias who had recently overcome dropsy—all were sauntering through the streets and alleys of the city talking up a storm about the collapse of the West. A certain Ivan Ivanovich, for instance, would run into Anatoly Leonidovich, shake his hand and say: "Have you heard, sir, the West is dying? Dying from disintegration and decay. Cultural life is dead, dead as a doornail—civilization marches on . . . " They'd sigh, hold meetings, suffer. This belief in the collapse of the West was held, among others, by the poet Troytsyn. He was returning home from a party one evening in the company of the Unknown Poet when, hiccuping from the good food, which had recently become widely available, he turned to his companion and whispered sympathetically in his ear: "We of the West shall surely perish and die." The Unknown Poet was humming: Oh, how sad! A thick darkness is descending The Unknown Poet spoke of K. Leontiev and sniggered at his brother-in-arms, Troytsyn. And what was death to the Unknown Poet? Nothing at all. It'll all come back full circle, anyway. "Lift up your leg and hop along," the Unknown Poet wanted to say. Instead, slapping Troytsyn on the back, he said: "Why don't you take a long, loving look at the spectacle of this world?" He pointed to a dog near the gate. The dog was urinating. Troytsyn stopped dead in his tracks—there were very few dogs in the city then. "Just the same, it's really sad," he said, addressing the Unknown Poet informally. "We write poems—but for whom? For nobody! Nobody needs them. Nobody reads them. Nobody ever comes to hear them. It's so very sad." "Well, you just go on grinding out your endless idylls," said the Unknown Poet. "You have a real knack for writing them. Go ahead! Do your thing: The flower blooms, the grass grows, the bird sings, and you write poetry." A pause. "The moon and the stars are out tonight," Troytsyn said, yawning softly. "Let's take a nice, long walk through the city." "Let's," agreed the Unknown Poet. With rags on their backs and worn-out shoes on their feet, the poets marched on, first to Pokrovskaya Square, then to Peski, and, finally, to the Garden of the Workers. "You really love St. Petersburg. You feel it deep down, don't you?" Troytsyn said. He was standing next to Kazan Cathedral admiring the stars. "What's so surprising about that?" the Unknown Poet observed, inspecting his boots. "I come from four generations of Petersburgians." "That explains why St. Petersburg is in your bones," Troytsyn said. He reached for his handkerchief. "I, on the other hand, come from Ladoga." "Then, by all means, write about Ladoga! Your childhood impressions are obviously connected with Ladoga rather than with St. Petersburg. As a child, you must have loved frolicking among the cornflowers, swamps and forests that bordered on your ancient, wooden church. But I grew up loving the Summer Garden, its sandbox, its flower-beds, its statues, the buildings. You sipped your tea straight from the saucer. Right?" They remained silent. The Unknown Poet looked around him. "I came to know our parks before I ever laid my eyes on our fields—and I saw the torso of Venus before I ever saw a tanned peasant woman. So how could I've acquired a love for the fields or for the villages and hamlets that nestle among them? No such love could arise in me." They sat down on a pile of stones next to Yusupovsky Garden. "Why don't you read some of your poems?" Troytsyn proposed. The Unknown Poet laid down his cane. "Oh God in heaven!" Troytsyn exclaimed, deeply moved. "What truly Petersburgian poems. . . ! Look, do you see the moon shining through the ruins?" He tiptoed his way to the top of the gravel heap. The Unknown Poet lit up a cigarette and said: "Stop looking at the moon! It's a disturbing sight." Then, tiptoeing his way up the stones, he moved in front of Troytsyn and shielded him from the moon. Arriving in our midst in the year of the Spengler craze, Misha Kotikov came under the spell of Zaevfratsky, a tall, silver-haired painter and poet of St. Petersburg. Or, rather, he came under the spell of Zaevfratsky's power, pride and world-view, since the man himself had recently drowned. He had been traveling with his two servants. From his 35th birthday on, Zaevfratsky worked to prepare materials for his future biographers. With this in mind—and in the company of his splendid retainers—he scaled Mt. Ararat, Mt. Elbrus, even the Himalayas. He had pitched his tent in every oasis, visited every palace, however fantastical, and conversed with every ruler of color. Misha Kotikov had never set eyes on Zaevfratsky. Still, he was quite impressed. Ruddy of cheek and well-groomed, Misha had a large head and a small mouth. "Fantastic!" the redheaded youth whispered as he pored over Zaevfratsky's books and drawings. When Alexander Zaevfratsky died, his wife wept and wrung her hands. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Zaevfratsky's friends came by to comfort and console her. Svechin, too, tried to console her. The very next day Svechin was bad-mouthing her: "What an idiot! Never so much as moves a muscle." And he paced the floor, shouting: "I'm holding her in my arms, but she goes on sighing: 'Oh! Alexander, my dear, sweet Alexander!'" A year later, Misha Kotikov, very much an admirer of Zaevfratsky, made the acquaintance of his widow Yekaterina. He dropped by one evening carrying a bottle of wine and hors d'oeuvre. With head bent down, Yekaterina talked about Alexander Zaevfratsky, about the dresses he liked seeing her in, about his hands, his gorgeous silvery locks, his massive stature, about how he used to pace the floor and how, standing on tiptoe, she would kiss him. . . Misha watched her with his light blue eyes. His small crimson mouth was open. He stroked Yekaterina's hands and squeezed them, then kissed her forehead and asked: "And what kind of nose did Alexander Zaevfratsky have? How long were his arms? Did he wear starched collars or did he prefer the looser kind? Is it true that Alexander would tap on the window-pane with his fingers. . . ?" Yekaterina answered all of Misha's questions, then burst out crying. She picked up a man's monogrammed handkerchief and wiped her eyes with it. "Wait a second! Isn't this Alexander Zaevfratsky's handkerchief that you are holding in your hand?" Misha exclaimed. Yekaterina went on wiping her tears for some time with Alexander Zaevfratsky's handkerchief. Giving the handkerchief at last to Misha, she said: "Please keep it in memory of Alexander Zaevfratsky." She wept again. Misha Kotikov folded the handkerchief neatly and buried it hastily in his pocket. "And what did Alexander Zaevfratsky say about poetry?" he asked, playing with the handkerchief in his pocket. "What exactly did poetry mean to him?" "Poetry? He never spoke to me about that!" Yekaterina Zaevfratsky declared, ogling herself in the mirror. Suddenly, she jumped up from her seat. Standing before the mirror, she demanded: "Don't you think I move gracefully, Misha? Come on! Take a look for yourself!" She swung her arms right, then left, moved her head up, then down, and declared: "For your information, Misha, Alexander always thought so!" "And when did Alexander begin writing poetry? At what age?" Misha inquired, lighting up a cigarette. "Honestly, Misha, don't I look like a little girl?" Yekaterina pleaded and plunked down in an armchair. "Alexander used to say that I was just like a little girl. Really!" "Yekaterina, which table should we set?" Misha got up from his armchair. He was angry. "That one!" she replied, pointing out the little round table, "but I've nothing to serve, Misha." "It's all right. I brought a bottle of Bordeaux with me. . . " Misha Kotikov announced with pride, "and hors d'oeuvre and fruit." "How very kind of you, Misha," Yekaterina laughed, "I just adore wine and fruit!" "Alexander's friends have completely abandoned me," Yekaterina sighed. Standing on tiptoe, Misha searched the cupboard for wine-glasses. "They don't care one iota about me," Yekaterina persisted. "They know that I haven't got an ounce of will-power in me, that I don't have the faintest notion how to live. . . " She caught her breath, then resumed her lament. "I tell you, Misha, they don't pay me the slightest attention. They don't drop by. They don't talk about Alexander. They don't sing my praises any more. Please, Misha, let's be friends and talk about Alexander Zaevfratsky!" After savoring the wine and hors d'oeuvre, Misha set out to examine the various objects in the room. "Isn't this where Alexander composed his poems?" Misha said, pointing to a small round table. "Why haven't you dusted it, if I may respectfully ask?" "I don't know how to," Yekaterina replied. "I never dusted a thing while Alexander was alive." Misha Kotikov woke up the next morning in Alexander Zaevfratsky's bed. Next to him slept Yekaterina Zaevfratsky, her mouth open and her hand sticking out. "It's a pity she's so stupid," thought Misha Kotikov. "She can't tell me one damn thing about Alexander worth remembering. I guess I'll have to go see his friends. Still, maybe she can tell me how Alexander went about writing his poems." "Yekaterina," Misha asked, "how did Alexander go about writing his poems?" Yekaterina Zaevfratsky woke up, stretched out her arms and jabbed Misha with her knee. Then, she turned over on her side and fell asleep. Two whole weeks Misha Kotikov called on Yekaterina. In the process, he collected a heap of intimate details about Alexander Zaevfratsky. Misha took Yekaterina to the cinema or, then again, to the theater or just for a stroll. He learned all there was to know about Alexander Zaevfratsky: How many birthmarks were on his body, how many corns were on his feet. He learned that in 191_ a boil had broken out on his back, that Alexander loved coconuts, that he had had plenty of lovers while married to Yekaterina, that he had loved her, nonetheless, very much. When he had learned all there was to learn and recorded all there was to record, it dawned on Misha that Alexander's lovers were probably a good deal smarter and better informed than his wife. They could tell him a lot more about Zaevfratsky's soul. So Misha dumped Yekaterina Zaevfratsky. Misha was always a clean-cut, fastidiously groomed young man. You'd have been hard put to find a single speck of dirt under his fingernail. Learning that a certain co-ed X had been Alexander's last mistress, Misha set out to meet her at a certain well-known house frequented by the literati. And what a marvelous house it was! Two young lady poets lived here. One wrote misty, melancholy poems, the other poems of passion and naturalness. It was as if they had divided the world between them into two halves: one filled with sadness, the other with joy. A whole assortment of young men and women passed through this house. Soon, a poetry club came into being, and even 35-year-old juveniles, poets of an earlier generation, showed up. They would all sit down in a circle, and each would recite his poems, while—out on the balcony—others would gaze at the starry sky or at the chimneys. It was at one of these reunions that Misha Kotikov first met co-ed X. Misha was seated on the floor on one of the sofa pillows. Legs spread and eyes shut, he recited his poems to the group. Next to him sat co-ed X, a cheerful young woman with long legs. "What do you say, Yevgenia," he asked, "shall we traipse through the city after the party? What do you say we walk as far as the Thomon Exchange?" "All right, but only if we go in a group," whispered Yevgenia. By two in the morning, a group had formed. As they sauntered past the horses rearing over the Fontanka River, Misha Kotikov wooed Yevgenia. How extraordinary she was, he told her, how stunning. . . When they approached the Thomon Stock Exchange, they broke away from the group. Their heads were leaning against each other. Misha blushed. Yevgenia turned crimson. They got up from the steps. "Tell me, Zhenya," Misha asked, "did Alexander Zaevfratsky love you very much?" "He promised to love me for two months. But soon he was avoiding me . . . " "And when did all this happen?" "On the 11th of February." "Did Alexander ever talk to you about poetry?" "Yes, he did," Yevgenia said, adjusting her skirt. "He said that every woman ought to write poetry. In France, he said, everybody writes poems." "And what did Alexander say about assonances?" "He never did like assonances. He said all they were good for was songs." "Lower your skirt, Zhenya! Somebody is coming. . . " Young couples were saying their good-byes. The city was gradually returning to life: richly colored buildings were greeting the dawn. The poet Troytsyn, who was seeing his lady pharmacist home, walked past. He had met her under the most unusual circumstances. Strolling past the pharmacy one evening, he had caught sight of a sweet young thing standing behind the counter and sauntered in. He asked her if she had anything for his headache. The sweet young thing knew all too well who Troytsyn was. How could she not know! Troytsyn had been reading his poems everywhere. And, boy, did he love to recite them! When she handed him the medication, Troytsyn started talking about the stars. Troytsyn was not of this world. That was all there was to it. He talked of nothing but the stars. "Look," he said, pointing to the window, "do you see the Great Bear?" "What a huge moon," said the girl. "And what pure night air!" Troytsyn added. "By the way, do you know my poem 'Lady of the Camillias'?" "No, I'm afraid I don't." "Would you like me to recite it to you?" "Yes, please, go ahead!" the lady pharmacist said. And Troytsyn recited it. "Oh, how poetic!" the sweet young thing said to herself, as if in a dream. Troytsyn leaned on the counter. The young girl glanced at the clock. "My girl friend will be here in a few minutes. I've been working her shift." "Then why don't I walk you home?" "Sure!" she said, opening her eyes wide. A half-hour later, they were walking past Petrovsky Park. Let's have a snowball fight!" Troytsyn suggested. They took turns. Now he ran away, now she did. There weren't any people around. They sat down to rest. Their bodies were white with snowballs. Troytsyn looked over his shoulder. No one. She looked around. No one. They walked on, away from the main road. The next day Troytsyn rushed about the city telling everybody. For the next two weeks, he walked the pharmacy girl home every night. Wherever he went, she was always by his side. He'd take his friends aside and whisper in their ears: "I'm fed up with her! I'm fed up with our one-dimensional love affair. No, I'm looking for real love, like Don Juan. Yes, that's it!" Misha and Yevgenia watched the couple walk by. They made fun of Troytsyn. Misha Kotikov and Yevgenia exchanged good-byes after setting a rendezvous for the next day. Misha walked up to the Unknown Poet and said: "I'm busy writing a biography of Alexander Zaevfratsky. Could you possibly relate to me the more pertinent facts about him?" "Hmm. . ." the Unknown Poet said lazily. "Why not ask Troytsyn? He knows everything." Misha Kotikov ran off in hot pursuit of Troytsyn. The following day, Misha Kotikov was sitting in the semi-darkness of Troytsyn's apartment. The smell of raspberry preserves drifted through the air, the muslin curtains swayed from the windows, a green lychnis plant looked over the window-sill, and on every wall hung portraits of French poets and engravings of Manon Lescaut, Ophelia and the Prodigal Son. "This pen belonged to Alexander Zaevfratsky," announced Troytsyn as he presented the penholder to Misha Kotikov. "And here is his ink-well. And his handkerchief." "I already have Alexander Zaevfratsky's handkerchief," Misha said with pride. "Really?! Are you collecting his poetic remains, too?" "I'm collecting them all for his biography," explained Misha. "It's important to establish precisely which handkerchief Alexander Zaevfratsky wore in any given year. The handkerchief in your hands is made of cambric, mine of linen. I suppose there's a connection of some sort between a man and his things: The linen handkerchief indicates one inclination of the mind, the cambric another." "My handkerchief belongs to the year 1913," interjected Troytsyn. "You see what I mean?!" observed Misha Kotikov. "Mine dates from 1916. That means that Alexander Zaevfratsky must have experienced an inner turmoil during the interval or else his economic situation had become precarious. By comparing handkerchiefs, we can determine the psychological and economic state of their owner." "I collect poetic memorabilia," said Troytsyn. He then brought out a little box and said: "Here's a shoelace from the half-boot belonging to the renowned poetess. . . (he called her by name). And here's a tie worn by the poet Lebedinsky. And here's Linsky's autograph and Petrov's, too, and—look, here's Alexander Zaevfratsky's autograph!" Misha Kotikov took Alexander Zaevfratsky's autograph in his hands and examined it with care. "And where can I obtain an autograph by Alexander Zaevfratsky?" "Oh, at Natalie Levantovsky's," Troytsyn said. "Oh! . . ." Misha Kotikov said to himself.
As early as spring, Teptyolkin moved to Peterhof, the city built by Peter the Great for his Court. There he rented a most unusual building. At the entrance to this building, he stopped to reflect: Here he'll be receiving his friends, strolling arm in arm with them in the park like the ancient philosophers. Here he'll be expounding and deliberating and discoursing on lofty things. Here, too, he will be visited by the dream of his life, a creature of extraordinary radiance, Marya Dalmatova. The poet extraordinaire—his philosopher and old mentor—will certainly show up. As the spiritual descendant of the great poets of the West, he'll recite his latest poems, ensconced in the lap of nature. Other friends and acquaintances will come, too. So thought Teptyolkin, as he stood on the threshold of his new home. In the morning, he got up, opened the window wide and sang like a bird. A milk-woman made the rounds below, and the sparrows chirped in their flight. "It's so warm!" he thought and stretched out his arms to the sun shining through the branches. "It's so quiet here, so peaceful: I'll be working far from the city. At last, I'll be able to concentrate. I won't have to spread myself so thin." He leaned his elbow on the table. "Ha! Ha!" laughed the residents of the neighboring dachas. It was evening, the hour when contented Soviet bureaucrats, accompanied by their wives and children, saunter on from their dachas to the park, to be swallowed up by the dense greenery. "Ha-ha! We hear the philosopher has arrived. Look at the place he has chosen for himself!" "Ha-ha! What a jerk. . . he spends his mornings picking flowers." Every day Teptyolkin waited for the arrival of his friends. It was for them that he plucked flowers each morning. Look! Over there! Teptyolkin is clutching an armful of bird cherry. Marya Dalmatova positively adores them. Look again, for there he is, rounding a corner with a bouquet of lilacs in his hands. Yekaterina Zaevfratsky loves lilacs. But why is there no sign of Natasha Golubetz? Where has she run off to? "We are the last island of the Renaissance," Teptyolkin proclaimed. "In the sea of dogmatism encircling us, we—and only we—have kept the lights of criticism burning. We alone have preserved a respect for scholarship, for the sciences and for man. Acknowledging neither lord nor servant, we have taken our stand on this high tower, against whose granite base the furious waves pound and beat." This was a real tower in the full sense of the word. It had once formed part of a merchant's dacha, whose ground floor had subsequently been ransacked by neighbors for firewood. The upstairs, however, survived intact. This upper room was very comfy. In its center stood a table covered by a green tablecloth, and around it huddled the invited guests: A lady wearing an amethyst pendant and an ostrich-feather hat, a dog seated on a chair next to her, an old man who inspected his nails and manicured them on the spot, a young man in a jacket holding a student cap of the ancien régime on his lap, the philosopher Andrei Andrievsky, three spinsters an