Little Apples

MY NANA

This was in the days before I became an unknown man of letters and before my bristling mustache had properly sprouted.

It was a beautiful spring evening. I was returning from a dacha soirée where we had danced as if possessed. In my whole youthful being there was—to put it figuratively—not a single stone left standing, not a phrase intact, not a single realm uncrushed. A desperate love raged in my frantic soul. It was a piercing, scalding, spirit-smothering love—my first love. I had fallen in love with a tall, well-built young lady of about twenty-three with a pretty but slightly foolish face and exquisite dimples on her cheeks. I fell in love with those dimples too, and with the light blond hair tumbling in curls over her beautiful shoulders from beneath her wide-brimmed straw hat.

Words escape me! Returning from the soirée, I threw myself on my bed and groaned as if I had been hit over the head. An hour later I was sitting at my table, my whole body shivering, and wasted a good twenty sheets of paper trying to write the following letter.

My dearest Valeria Andreyevna,

I do not know you very well, indeed barely at all, but I will not let this hinder achieving my goal. Omitting grandiloquent turns of phrase, I shall come straight to the point: I love you! I love you more than life itself! This is not hyperbole. I am an honest man. I work (there followed a lengthy description of my virtues). My life is not dear to me. I am prepared to die—if not today, then tomorrow, and if not tomorrow, a year from now, what do I care! On the table before me, just two feet from my chest, lies a revolver (a six-shot .38 caliber). I am in your hands! If the life of a man who is passionately in love with you is in any way dear to you, then please respond to this letter. Your maid Palasha knows me. You can send a reply through her.

Sincerely,

The man who sat across from you yesterday

P.S. Have pity on me!

I sealed the letter and placed the revolver on the table in front of me—more for effect than to take my life—then went outside and made my way past the dachas in search of a mailbox. A mailbox was found, and the letter dropped in.

And, as Palasha later told me, this is what happened to my letter. The next morning at about eleven, Palasha placed the letter, which the postman had just delivered, on a silver platter and took it up to her mistress’ bedroom. Valeria Andreyevna lay beneath an airy silken cover, stretching lazily. She had just woken up and was smoking her first cigarette of the day. A ray of sunlight pierced the window, and she whimsically crinkled her nose. When she saw my letter, she made a sour grimace.

“Who’s it from?” she asked. “Read it to me, Palasha. I don’t like reading those letters. They’re always so full of nonsense.”

Palasha unsealed my letter and began reading it aloud. The more she read, the wider her mistress’ eyes grew. When Palasha came to the part about the revolver, Valeria Andreyevna opened her mouth and looked at her in terror.

“What does he mean?” she asked in bewilderment.

Palasha repeated the words. Valeria Andreyevna’s eyes blinked.

“Who is this man? Who is he? Why does he write such things?” she gasped. “Who is he?”

Palasha realized that I was the one who had written the letter, and described me.

“But why does he write such things? Why? What am I supposed to do? There’s nothing I can do, is there, Palasha? Well . . . is he rich?”

Palasha, whom I had been tipping with almost everything I earned, thought for a few moments, and then said it was quite likely that I was rich.

“But there’s is nothing I can do, is there? I’m expecting Alexei Matveyich today, and the baron tomorrow . . . and on Thursday, Monsieur Romb. When am I supposed to receive him? It will have to be during the day, won’t it?”

“You’ve arranged for Grigory Grigorevich to start visiting you during the day.”

“You see what I mean! Can I receive him at all? Well, tell him . . . tell him . . . well, have him come to tea today. But that’s the best I can do!”

Valeria Andreyevna was on the verge of tears. It was the first time in her life that she had been confronted with a revolver, and it had been through my pen! That evening I drank tea with her. Though I was suffering, I had four cups. As luck would have it, it began to rain, and Valeria’s Alexei Matveyich did not visit her. In the end, I did rejoice.