Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me: The Best of Teffi

LIZA

The three of us were sitting together: I, my sister Lena, and Liza, the priest’s daughter,[1] who used to come to our house to have lessons, and compete with us to be seen as the most diligent and obedient pupil.

Today there were no lessons and we were not allowed to play. Today was a solemn, anxious day—Holy Saturday.[2]

We had to sit quietly, not bother or pester anybody, not fight, and not fidget or kneel on our chairs. Everything was difficult, complicated and extremely disagreeable. The shadow of pain and mortification hung over the entire day.

Everyone was busy, irritable, in a hurry. Our governess with the red blotches on her cheeks was running up a blouse for herself on the sewing machine. Huh! As if it made any difference to her pockmarked nose. Nanny had gone into the big girls’ room to iron pinafores. My elder sisters were sitting in the dining room, decorating eggs. They greeted me in their usual way: “The very last person we want in here! Won’t you take her away, Nanny?”

I tried to stand my ground but promptly knocked over a cup of paint with my elbow, and, with the assistance of Nanny, who came bustling in, was returned to the nursery. And in the midst of this debacle I found out that our parents wouldn’t be taking us to church that evening for the Easter Vigil.

I was so furious I didn’t even cry. I just said sardonically, “We get dragged along for confession all right. They take the best—and leave the worst for us.”

Despite my brilliant rejoinder, the enemy prevailed; we had to retreat to the nursery.

Just then, as ill luck would have it, Lena and I were in the midst of a heated theological debate—on the subject of robbers and prayers. The priest had told us that before beginning any task, we should always say a prayer. I was immediately struck by a difficult problem: when a robber is about to kill someone, shouldn’t he say a prayer first? After all, killing is his task. But Lena argued that a robber didn’t need to say a prayer first, since he’d be forgiven for all his sins in one go.

There was no one we could ask, and we weren’t allowed to fight. What could we do?

At last, Liza arrived.

Liza had a thin, taut face. Her big, pale, bulging eyes always bore a look of startled inspiration. She saw everything two or three times larger than life, and told lies as if she lied for a living.

She was a year older than me. She had already been twice to confession. Lena and I looked on her with respect.

We knew every detail about Liza’s home life, all of which was quite fascinating.

Liza had an uncle, a seminary student, Pyotr Yakovlevich, who had once drunk the milk of four cows. He had arrived to find no one at home and all the milk from that evening’s milking standing in the porch, and he had drunk the lot.

Also, Liza’s family had four golden grand pianos at home, but they were hidden in the hayloft, so that nobody could see them.

Also, nobody ever ate dinner at Liza’s house. Instead, there was a big cupboard in the hall that was always full of roast chickens. If anyone was hungry, all he had to do was to poke his head into the cupboard, eat a chicken and go on his way.

Also, Liza had fourteen velvet dresses, but she only wore them at night so that nobody would see them. In the daytime she hid them in the kitchen under the big pot they used for making pastry.

Also, Liza spoke very good French, but not the kind of French we spoke with our governess. Liza spoke a different kind of French, which nobody understood.

All in all, Liza’s life was quite fascinating.

So there we were, sitting quietly and talking. Liza was telling us her news. First, we had to cross our hearts and swear not to tell a soul.

We crossed our hearts and swore. To make it still more binding, we spat over our left shoulders.

“You promise not to tell a soul?”

“Not a soul, for ever and ever, Amen.”

Liza shot a glance at the door, her eyes pale and terrible, and whispered, “The wife of Trifon the gardener gave birth to two puppies and told everyone they were children, but when people started to ask questions, she roasted them and gave them to Trifon to eat.”

“But you can’t eat puppies,” said Lena in fright. “It’s a sin.”

“But she never told anyone they were puppies. She told everyone they were children.”

I felt my hands grow cold. And Liza was frightened too; she had tears in her eyes and her nose was all swollen: “It was the Devil got into her. Everyone knows it’s easy for the Devil to creep up on people when they’re asleep.”

“Have you ever seen the Devil, Liza?”

“Yes. Evening’s the time to look out for him. If the cross round your neck suddenly shines very bright, that means the Devil will definitely come.”

“So you’ve seen him?”

“Yes, I’ve seen him. If I wake up in the night and I poke my head out of the bedclothes, I always see a devil over Papa’s head, and a devil over Mama’s head. Papa and Mama both have a devil standing over them all night long.”

“And black cats, too,” I said. “Black cats are full of it too.”

“Full of what?”

“Full of the Devil. If a black cat crosses your path, something bad will definitely happen to you.”

“Even a black hare can be dangerous,” added Lena.

I was genuinely surprised. How did my little sister know this without me telling her?

“Yes, very dangerous,” agreed Liza. “When our Lida was dying I went with my Aunt Katya to Lichevka to buy some muslin. On our way back, a black cat ran across the road. And then, all of a sudden, a hare! And then a wolf! And then a bear! And then a tiger! And a mole! And when we got back, Lidochka was already dead.”

I was so excited that for some time now I had been kneeling on my chair with my elbows on the table.

“Oh, that’s so awful, Liza,” I said. “Though, you know, I’m not afraid of anything—not really. I’m only afraid of wolves. And ghosts. And dark rooms. And dead people. I’m awfully afraid of dead people. And sleeping in a room all by myself. And I’d never go out in the forest alone. But apart from that, I’m not afraid of anything. If someone gave me a gun for Easter, I’d shoot the lot of them straightaway, right in the head. Just like that! I’m not afraid of anything.”

“So, what are you getting for Easter?” asked Liza.

“I don’t know. A croquet set, maybe. What about you?”

“I’m getting—a croquet set too, and a… grand piano.”

“But I thought you already had some grand pianos!”

“Yes, but we need more. And then, I’m getting a carriage. And a gold-plated tin of sardines. And gold-embroidered slippers. And a golden comb. And a golden spoon.”

Lucky Liza. Everything she has is made of gold.

“Liza, why is it you always smell of onion? And smoke?”

“Oh, that’s the eau de cologne we use.”

Lena gawped at Liza. But I knew that there were different kinds of eau de cologne, made with different flowers and herbs. Clearly, Liza’s family used eau de cologne made with onion.

“Are you going to the Easter Vigil?” Liza asked suddenly.

Oh. That was the question I had been dreading. All through Good Friday we had been talking about the Vigil and what dresses we’d be given to wear. We were so hoping it would be our light blue ones.

I pretended I hadn’t heard. But then, to my amazement, I heard Lena answering calmly, “We don’t know yet. It depends on the weather.”

Clever Lena! I’d never have come up with that myself.

“Aunt Sonia said that last year she was in Arkhangelsk at Easter, and it snowed,” I said, doing my bit to salvage our dignity.

“My mama told me,” remarked Liza with an astonishing lack of tact, “that your parents aren’t taking you to church this year.”

Nanny came in with a pile of freshly ironed pinafores over one arm. With her free hand, she slapped her hip indignantly.

“Look at this one, kneeling again! She’s worn all the legs of her stockings to holes. How on earth am I meant to keep up with the darning?”

“This one”, of course, was me.

To obey immediately and get down from the chair would be demeaning. I slowly lowered one leg, as if of my own accord.

“Well, are you getting down from the chair or not?” exclaimed Nanny impatiently. “Whatever I say it’s like water off a duck’s back! Liza, put your coat on, your auntie’s come for you.”

Liza got up. Now it was safe to get down from the chair.

Liza tied a woollen shawl around her head. With a sideways glance at Nanny, she whispered, “Your nanny doesn’t have feathers in her eiderdown, she has three million roubles hidden in there, in gold coins. And it’s no secret—the robbers all know.”

In her dark shawl Liza’s face looked thin and pale. What she had just said made me feel afraid for Nanny. Lena’s bottom lip began to twist and wobble from side to side. She was about to cry.

Liza glanced quickly again at Nanny, out of the corner of her eye, as if to warn us to keep our mouths shut.

She left. Lena and I were now on our own. Neither of us said anything.

After Liza’s visits, everything felt somehow special, mysterious and unsettling.

The thin branches of the cherry tree, already green with buds, stirred restlessly outside the window, peering into the room.

The blanket on Nanny’s bed also seemed to be stirring. Maybe a robber had got in and was now lying hidden under the blanket, stealing the gold…

LOVE

It was the wonderful days of my ninth spring—days that were long and full to the brim, saturated with life.

Everything in those days was interesting, important and full of meaning. Objects were new. And people were wise; they knew an astonishing amount and were keeping their great dark secrets until some unknown day in the future.

The morning of each long day began joyfully: thousands of small rainbows in the soapy foam of the wash bowl; a new, brightly coloured light dress; a prayer before the icon, behind which the stems of pussy willow were still fresh; tea on a terrace shaded by lemon trees that had been carried out from the orangery in their tubs; my elder sisters, black-browed and with long plaits, only just back from boarding school for the holidays and still seeming strange to me; the slap of washing bats from the pond beyond the flower garden, where the women doing the laundry were calling out to one another in ringing voices; the languid clucking of hens behind a clump of young, still small-leaved lilac. Not only was everything new and joyful in itself but it was, moreover, a promise of something still more new and joyful.

And it was during this spring, the ninth of my life, that my first love came, revealed itself and left—in all its fullness, with rapture and pain and disenchantment, with all that is to be expected of any true love.

Four peasant girls, Khodoska, Paraska, Pidorka and Khovra—all wearing coin necklaces, Ukrainian wraparound skirts and linen shirts with embroidered shoulders—were weeding the garden paths. They scraped and hacked at the fresh black earth with their spades, turning over thick, oily sods and tearing away crackly, tenacious rootlets as thin as nerves.

For hours on end, until I was called, I would stand and watch, and breathe in the heavy damp smell of the earth.

Necklaces dangled and clinked, arms red from the year’s first strong sun slid lightly and gaily up and down the spades’ wooden handles.

And then one day, instead of Khovra, who was fair and stocky, with a thin red band around her head, I saw a new girl—tall and lithe, with narrow hips.

“Hey, new girl, what’s your name?” I asked.

A dark head encircled by thick, four-stranded plaits and with a narrow white parting down the centre turned towards me, and dark, mischievous eyes looked at me from beneath curved eyebrows that met in the middle, and a merry red mouth smiled at me.

“Ganka!”

And her teeth gleamed—even, white and large.

She said her name and laughed, and the other girls all laughed, and I felt merry too.

This Ganka was astonishing. Why was she laughing? And what was it about her that made me feel so merry? She was not as well dressed as smart Paraska, but her thick striped skirt was wound so deftly round her shapely hips, her red woollen sash gripped her waist so firmly and vibrantly and her bright green ribbon fluttered so arrestingly by the collar of her shirt that it was hard to imagine anything prettier.

I looked at her, and every move, every turn of her supple dark neck sang like a song in my soul. And her eyes flashed again, mischievous, as if tickling me; they laughed, then looked down.

I also felt astonished by Paraska, Khodoska and Pidorka—how could they keep their eyes off her? How did they dare behave as if they were her equals? Were they blind? But then even she herself seemed to think she was no different from the others.

I looked at her fixedly, without thoughts, as if dreaming.

From far away a voice called my name. I knew I was being called to my music lesson, but I didn’t answer.

Then I saw Mama going down a nearby avenue with two smartly dressed ladies I didn’t know. Mama called to me. I had to go and drop a curtsy to them. One of the ladies lifted my chin with a little hand sheathed in a perfumed white glove. She was gentle, all in white, all in lace. Looking at her, I suddenly felt Ganka was coarse and rough.

“No, Ganka’s not nice,” I thought.

I wandered quietly back to the house.

Placid, merry and carefree, I went out the following morning to see where the girls were weeding now.

Those sweet dark eyes met me as gaily and affectionately as if nothing had happened, as if I had never betrayed them for a perfumed lady in lace. And again the singing music of the movements of her slender body took over, began to enchant.

The conversation at breakfast was about yesterday’s guest, Countess Mionchinskaya. My eldest brother was sincerely enraptured by her. He was straightforward and kind but, since he was being educated at the lycée, he felt it necessary to lisp and drawl and slightly drag his right foot as he walked.[1] And, doubtless afraid that a summer deep in the country might erase these stigmata of the dandy, he greatly surprised us younger ones with his strange mannerisms.

“The countess is divi-i-inely beau-utiful!” he said. “She was the to-oast of the se-ea-son.”

My other brother, a cadet at the military academy, did not agree. “I don’t see anything so special about her. She may put on airs, but she’s got the mitts of a peasant—the mitts of a baba who’s been soaking neckweed.”[2]

The first brother poured scorn on this: “Qu’est-ce que c’est mitt? Qu’est-ce que c’est baba? Qu’est-ce que c’est neckweed?”

“But I’ll tell you who really is a beauty,” the second brother continued, “and that’s Ganka who works in the garden.”

“Hah!”

“She’s badly dressed, of course, but give her a lace gown and gloves and she’ll beat your countess hands down.”

My heart started beating so fast I had to close my eyes.

“How can you talk such rubbish?” said my sister Vera, taking offence on the countess’s behalf. “Ganka’s coarse, and she has no manners. She probably eats fish with a knife.”

I was in torment. It seemed as if something, some secret of mine, was about to be revealed—but what this secret was I did not even know myself.

“Although that, I think we can say, has nothing to do with it,” said the first brother. “Helen of Troy didn’t have French governesses, and she ate fish with her fingers—not even with a knife—yet her renown as a world beauty remains unchallenged. What’s the matter, Kishmish? Why have you gone so red?”

“Kishmish” was my nickname.[3] I answered in a trembling voice, “Leave me in peace. I’m not doing you any harm. But you… you’re always picking on me.”

In the evening, lying on the sofa in the dark drawing room, I heard my mother in the hall; she was playing a piece I loved, the cavatina from the opera Martha.[4] Something in the soft, tender melody evoked—called up within me—the same singing languor that I had seen in Ganka’s movements. And this sweet torment, and the music, and my sadness and happiness made me cry, burying my face in a cushion.

It was a grey morning, and I was afraid it would rain and I wouldn’t be allowed out into the garden.

I was, indeed, not allowed out.

I sat down sadly at the piano and began playing exercises, stumbling each time in the same place.

But later in the morning the sun appeared and I raced out into the garden.

The girls had just thrown down their spades and sat down for their midday meal. They got out pots and jugs wrapped in cloths and began to eat. One was eating buckwheat kasha, another had some soured milk. Ganka unwrapped her own little bundle, took out a thick crust of bread and a bulb of garlic, rubbed the bread with the garlic and began to eat, shining her mischievous eyes at me.

I took fright and went away. How terrible that Ganka ate such filth. It was as if the garlic had thrust her away from me. She had become alien and incomprehensible. Better if she’d eaten fish with a knife.

I remembered what my brother had said about Yelena the Beautiful,[5] but this brought me no consolation and I plodded back to the house.

Nanny was sitting by the back door, knitting a stocking and listening to the housekeeper.

I heard the name “Ganka” and froze. I knew only too well that if I went up to them they’d either shoo me away or stop talking.

“She worked for the steward’s wife all winter. She’s a hardworking girl. But not an evening went by—the steward’s wife noticed—without a soldier coming to see her. The steward’s wife packed him off once, and she packed him off twice—but what could the good woman do? She couldn’t be packing him off night after night.”

“Indeed!” said Nanny. “How could she?”

“So she scolded her now and again, of course, but Ganka just laughed—it was water off a duck’s back. Then, just before Twelfth Night, the steward’s wife hears noises in the kitchen—as if Ganka were constantly pushing something about the room. And then, first thing in the morning, she hears tiny squeals. She hurries into the kitchen: not a sign of Ganka—just a baby wrapped up in pieces of cloth, lying on some bedding and letting out little squeals. She takes fright. She looks everywhere: where was Ganka? Had something very bad happened? She looks out through the window—and there she is. Standing by the hole in the ice, barefoot, washing out her linen and singing away. The steward’s wife would have liked to dismiss her, but how could she manage without her? It’s not easy to find such a sturdy, hard-working lass.”

I slipped quietly off.

So Ganka was friends with a common, uneducated soldier. This was horrible, horrible. And then she had tormented some little baby. This really was something dark and terrible. She had stolen it from somewhere and wrapped it up in rags; and when it had begun to squeal, she’d run off to the ice hole and sung songs there.

All evening I was in misery. That night I had a dream from which I awoke in tears. But my dream was neither sad nor frightening, and I was crying not from grief but from rapture. When I woke, I could barely remember it. I could only say, “I dreamt of a boat. It was quite transparent, light blue. It floated through the wall, straight into silver rushes. Everything was poetry and music.”

“So why all the howling?” asked Nanny. “It’s only a boat! Maybe this boat of yours will bring you something good.”

I could see she didn’t understand, but there was nothing more I could say or explain. And my soul was ringing, singing, weeping in ecstasy. A light-blue boat, silver rushes, poetry and music.

I didn’t go out into the garden. I was afraid I’d see Ganka and begin thinking about the soldier and the little baby wrapped up in cloth, that everything would once again become frightening and incomprehensible.

The day dragged restlessly on. It was blustery outside and the wind was bending the trees. The branches shook; the leaves made a dry, boiling sound, like sea surf.

In the corridor, outside the store room, was a surprise: on the table stood an opened crate of oranges. It must have been brought from town that morning; after lunch they’d be handed out to us.

I adore oranges. They are round and golden, like the sun, and beneath their peel are thousands of tiny pockets bursting with sweet, fragrant juice. An orange is a joy. An orange is a thing of beauty.

And suddenly I thought of Ganka. She didn’t know about oranges. Warm tenderness and pity filled my heart.

Poor Ganka! She didn’t know. I must give her one. But how? To take one without asking was unthinkable. But if I did ask, I’d be told to wait until after lunch. And then I wouldn’t be able to take the orange away from table. I wouldn’t be allowed to, or they’d ask questions—someone might even guess. I’d be laughed at. Better just to take one without asking. I’d be punished, I wouldn’t be given any more—but so what? What was I afraid of ?

Round, cool and pleasing, the orange lay in my hand.

How could I? Thief! Thief! Never mind. There’d be time enough for all that—what mattered now was to find Ganka.

The girls turned out to be weeding right by the house, by the back door.

“Ganka! This is for you, for you! Try it—it’s for you.”

Her red mouth laughed.

“What is it?”

“It’s an orange. It’s for you.”

She turned it round and round in her hand. I mustn’t embarrass her.

I ran back inside and, sticking my head out of the corridor window, waited to see what would happen. I wanted to share in Ganka’s delight.

She bit off a piece together with the peel (Oh, why hadn’t I peeled it first?), then suddenly opened her mouth wide, made a horrible face, spat everything out and hurled the orange far into the bushes. The other girls stood around her, laughing. And she was still screwing up her face, shaking her head, spitting, and wiping her mouth with the cuff of her embroidered shirt.

I climbed down from the windowsill and went quickly to the dark end of the corridor. Squeezing behind a large chest covered with a dusty carpet, I sat on the floor and began to weep.

Everything was over. I had become a thief in order to give her the best thing I knew in all the world. And she hadn’t understood, and she had spat it out.

How would I ever survive this grief and this hurt?

I wept till I had no more tears. Then a new thought came into my head: “What if there are mice here behind the chest?”

This fear entered my soul, grew in strength, scared away my previous feelings and returned me to life.

In the corridor I bumped into Nanny. She threw up her hands in horror.

“Your dress! Your dress! You’re covered in muck, head to toe! And don’t tell me you’re crying again, are you?”

I said nothing. This morning humanity had failed to understand my silver rushes, which I had so longed to explain. And “this”—this was beyond telling. “This” was something I had to be alone with.

But humanity wanted an answer. It was shaking me by the shoulder. And I fended it off as best I could.

“I’m not crying. I… my… I’ve just got toothache.”

THE GREEN DEVIL

I could think of nothing else all month: Would they let me go to the Christmas party, or not?

I was cunning. I prepared the ground. I told my mother about the glorious achievements of Zhenya Ryazanova, for whom the party was being given. I said that Zhenya was doing very well at school, that she was almost top of the class and was always being held up as an example to us. And that she wasn’t just a little girl, but a very serious woman: she was already sixteen.

In short, I didn’t waste any time. And then, one fine morning I was called into the living room and told to stand in front of the big mirror and try on a white dress with a blue sash; I understood that I had won. I would be going to the party.

After that, preparations began in earnest: I took oil from the icon lamp in Nanny’s room and smeared it on my eyebrows every evening to make them grow thicker in time for the ball; I altered a corset my older sister had thrown away and then hid it under the mattress; I rehearsed sophisticated poses and enigmatic smiles in front of the mirror. My family expressed surprise. “Why’s Nadya looking so idiotic?” people kept asking. “I suppose she’s at that awkward age. Oh well, she’ll grow out of it.”

The Christmas party would be on the 24th. Zhenya’s name day.

I did everything in my power on the aesthetic front. With no resources at my disposal but a torn corset, I still managed to achieve a quite extraordinary effect. I cinched myself in so tight at the waist that I could only stand on tiptoe. I could barely breathe, and my face took on an imploring look. But it was a joy to make my first sacrifices in the name of beauty.

Nanny was to take me to the party. I put on my fur coat before saying goodbye to my family, so as not to overwhelm them with my shapeliness.

There were a lot of people at the Ryazanovs, and most of them grown up: officers, friends of Zhenya’s brother, ladies of various ages. There were only two or three younger girls like myself, and only one cadet between us, so we had to dance with the officers. This was a great honour, of course, but a little intimidating.

At dinner, despite all my attempts to manoeuvre myself into the place next to the cadet, I was seated beside a large officer with a black beard. He was probably about thirty, but at the time he seemed to me a decrepit creature whose life was behind him.

“A fine old relic to be sitting next to,” I thought. “Seems I’m in for a jolly evening!”

The officer studied me very seriously and said, “You’re a typical Cleopatra. Quite remarkable.”

Alarmed, I said nothing.

“I just said,” he went on, “that you remind me of Cleopatra. Have you done Cleopatra at school yet?”

“Yes.”

“You have her regal air, and you are just as sophisticated and experienced a flirt. The only thing is, your feet don’t touch the ground. But that’s a minor detail.”[1]

My heart beat faster. That I was an experienced flirt, I had no doubt. But how had this old man spotted it so very quickly?

“Look inside your napkin,” he said.

I looked. A pink chenille ballerina was poking out of the napkin.

“Look what I have.”

He had a green devil, with a tail made from silver metallic cord. The tail shook and the devil danced on a wire, so jolly and so beautiful that I gasped and reached my hand out towards it.

“Stop it!” he said. “He’s my devil! You have a ballerina. Tell her how pretty she is!”

He stood the devil in front of his plate.

“Look at him. Isn’t he wonderful? I can honestly say he’s the finest work of art I’ve ever seen. Still, I don’t suppose you’re interested in art. You’re a flirt. A Cleopatra. You just want to lure men to their doom.”

“Yes, he really is the very most handsome,” I babbled. “Nobody else has anyone like him.”

The officer briskly inspected the other guests. Everybody had a small chenille figure: a dog wearing a skirt, a chimney-sweep, a monkey. Nobody had a devil like he did. Or anything the least bit like him.

“Well, of course, a devil like him doesn’t come along every day of the week. Look at his tail. It shakes all by itself—without anyone even touching it. And he’s such a jolly little fellow!”

There was no need to tell me all this. I was already very taken with the devil. So much so that I didn’t even feel like eating.

“Why aren’t you eating? Did your mother tell you not to?”

Ugh, how very rude! What did my mother have to do with it, when I was a society woman dining with an officer at a ball?

“No, merci, I just don’t feel like it. I never eat much at balls.”

“Really? Well, you know what’s best for you—you must have been to lots of balls over the years. But why aren’t you looking at my little devil? You won’t be able to admire him much longer, you know. Dinner will be over soon and I’ll be putting him in my pocket and going back home with him.”

“What will you do with him?” I asked, with timid hope.

“What do you mean? He will bring beauty to my lonely life. And then I’ll get married and show him to my wife, if she’s well-behaved. He’s a wonderful little devil, isn’t he?”

Horrid old, mean old man, I thought. Didn’t he understand how I loved that jolly devil? How I loved him!

If he hadn’t been so delighted with the devil himself, I might have suggested a swap. My ballerina for his devil. But he was so entranced with this devil that there seemed no point in pestering him.

“Why are you so sad all of a sudden?” he asked. “Is it because all this will be over soon? And you’ll never again see anything like him? It’s true, you don’t come across his sort so very often.”

I hated this unkind man. I even refused a second helping of ice cream, which I really wanted. I refused because I was very unhappy. Nothing in the world mattered to me any more. I had no use for any of life’s pleasures and believed in nothing.

Everyone got up from the table. And my companion hurried off, too. But the little devil was still there on the table. I waited. Not that I was thinking anything in particular. I wasn’t thinking with my head. It seemed that only my heart was thinking, because it began to beat fast and hard against the top of my tight corset.

The officer didn’t come back.

I took the devil. The springy silver tail whipped against my hand. Quick—into my pocket he went.

They were dancing again in the hall. The nice young cadet asked me for a dance. I didn’t dare. I was afraid the devil would jump out of my pocket.

I didn’t love the devil any more. He had not brought me joy. Only worry and anxiety. Perhaps I just needed to take a quick look at him—then I’d be ready to suffer for his sake. But as it was… What had I gone and done? Should I just slip in and put him back on the table? But the dining room door was locked now. Probably they were already clearing the table.

“Why are you looking so sad, my charming lady?”

The “old man” was standing beside me, smiling roguishly. “I’ve suffered a real tragedy,” he said. “My devil’s gone missing. I’m at my wit’s end. I’m going to ring the police. They need to carry out a search. There may be a dangerous criminal in our midst.”

He smiled. What he said about the police was, of course, a joke.

“How old are you?” he asked suddenly.

“I’ll be fifteen soon. In ten months.”

“Aha! As soon as that! So in three years’ time I could be marrying you. If only my dear little devil hadn’t disappeared so inexplicably. How will I be able to make my wife happy now? Why are you so silent? Do you think I’m too old for you?”

“Not now,” I answered gloomily. “But in three years’ time you’ll be an important general.”

“A general. That’s a nice thought. But what can have happened to my devil?”

I looked up into his face. I hated him so much and I was so hugely unhappy that he stopped smiling and walked away.

And I went to my friend’s room and, hiding behind the curtain (not that there was anyone else in the room), I took out the devil. He was a little squashed, but there was something else besides. He had changed. Looking at him no longer made me feel the least bit happy. I didn’t want to touch him, and I didn’t want to laugh. He was just the most ordinary devil, green chenille with a little silver tail. How could he make anybody happy? How ridiculous it all was!

I stood up on the window sill, opened the small pane at the top and threw him out on the street.

Nanny was waiting for me in the hall.

The officer walked up to us, glanced at Nanny and chuckled: “Here to collect our Queen Cleopatra, are you?”

And then he fell silent, looked at me thoughtfully and said, simply and kindly, “Off you go. Off to bed with you, little one. You’ve gone quite pale. God bless you.”

I said goodbye and left, quiet and tired.

B-o-r-i-n-g.[2]

VALYA

I was in my twenty-first year.

She, my daughter, was in her fourth.[1]

We were not well matched.

I was rather nervy and unpredictable at that time, usually either crying or laughing.

Valya, on the other hand, was very even-tempered and calm. And from morning to night she was engaged in commerce—bargaining with me for chocolates.

In the morning she would not get up until she was given a chocolate. Nor would she go out for a walk, come back from a walk, have breakfast, have lunch, drink milk, get into the bath, get out of the bath, sleep or comb her hair except for a fee—a chocolate. Without chocolate, all life would come to a standstill, all activity replaced by a deafening, systematic howl. Then I would feel I was a monster, a child-killer. And I would give in to her.

Valya despised me for my lack of good sense—that was clear enough. But she didn’t treat me too badly. Sometimes she would even pet me with her soft, warm hand, which was always sticky from sweets.

“You’re so pretty,” she would say. “You have a nose like my elly-phant.”

Not particularly flattering. But I knew that my daughter thought her little rubber elephant more beautiful than the Venus de Milo. We all have our different ideals. So I was happy to hear her say this, although I tried not to encourage endearments from her when there were other people around.

Apart from sweets, Valya was interested in very little. Though once, while drawing moustaches on some elderly aunts in a photograph album, she asked in passing, “So where is Jesus Christ now?”

And, without waiting for an answer, she demanded a chocolate.

She was very strict about decorum. She insisted on being the first to be greeted by everyone. On one occasion she came up to me very upset and indignant indeed: “Motya the cook’s daughter has gone out on the balcony in only her skirt,” she said. “And there are geese out there.”

Yes, she was very punctilious.

It seemed that year as if Christmas would be a rather sad, anxious time. Sometimes I was able to laugh, since I wanted so badly to live on God’s earth. But more often I cried, since life was proving almost beyond me.

For days on end Valya talked with her little elephant about a Christmas tree. It was clear that I would have to get hold of one.

In secret, I ordered some Dresden ornaments from Muir and Mirrielees.[2] I unpacked them at night.

They were absolutely wonderful: little houses and lanterns, parrots in golden cages. But best of all was a little angel, all covered in gold glitter, with iridescent mica wings. The angel hung on a piece of elastic and its wings fluttered when it moved. What the angel was made of, I don’t know. It could have been wax. It had pink cheeks and it held a rose in its hands. I had never seen anything so marvellous.

And at once I thought, “Better not hang it on the tree. In any case its beauty will be lost on Valya. She’ll only break it. I’ll keep it for myself.”

So that’s what I decided to do.

But in the morning, Valya sneezed. She must have caught a cold, I thought. I was seized with anxiety.

She might look chubby, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t delicate. I didn’t take good enough care of her. I was a bad mother. And now, wanting to keep the best for myself, I’d hidden the angel. “Its beauty will be lost on her,” I had said to myself. But if that were the case, it was only because I hadn’t taught her to appreciate beauty.

On the night before Christmas, when I was decorating the tree, I took out the angel. I looked at it for a long time. What a pretty little thing it was, with that rose in its chubby little hand. It looked so cheerful, so rosy-cheeked, yet so gentle. An angel like that should be hidden away in a box, and only on bad days—when the postman brought me horrid letters, and the lamps burned low and the wind made the roof rattle—only then should I allow myself to take it out, to dangle it gently on its elastic and watch the glitter of the gold and the play of light on the mica wings. This might not sound like much. It might sound sad. But did I have anything better to look forward to?

I hung the angel high up on the tree. It was the most beautiful of all the ornaments, so it had to be in the place of honour. But all the time there was another thought in my head—a secret, mean thought. High up, it would be less obvious to smaller persons.

That evening we lit the candles on the tree. We invited Motka, and Lyoshka, the laundrywoman’s son. And Valya was so sweet and affectionate that my hard heart began to melt. I lifted her up in my arms and I showed her the angel.

“An angel?” she said in her businesslike way. “Give it to me.”

I gave it to her.

She looked at it for a long time, stroking its wings with one finger.

I saw that she liked the angel, and I felt proud of my daughter. After all, she hadn’t paid the least attention to the stupid clown, even though it was so brightly coloured.

Valya suddenly bent forward and kissed the angel. My darling girl!

At that moment Niushenka, one of our neighbours, arrived. She had brought a gramophone with her. We began to dance.

Really I ought to hide the angel, I thought. It’ll only get broken… But where was Valya?

Valya was standing in the corner behind the bookshelf. Her mouth and cheeks were smeared with something raspberry-coloured. She looked troubled.

“What is it, Valya? What’s the matter? What’s that in your hand?”

In her hand were the mica wings, crumpled and broken.

“It tasted a bit sweet,” she said.

I must wash her at once, I thought. I must scrub her tongue. That was what mattered—the paint might be poisonous. She seemed, thank God, to be all right. But why was I crying as I threw the broken mica wings in the fire? How very silly of me! I was crying!

Valya stroked me indulgently on the cheek with her soft hand, which was warm and sticky, and tried to comfort me:

“Don’t cry, you silly. I’ll buy you some money.”

STAGING POSTS

On that morning it was always sunny.

The weather was always bright and cheerful. So, at least, both Liza and Katya remembered it for the rest of their lives.[1]

On that morning, Nanny would always dress them in new, light-coloured dresses. Then she would go to the “big” dining room, where the adults were drinking tea, and come back up again with half a hard-boiled egg, a piece of kulich and a piece of paskha[2] for each of them.

Nanny herself always broke her Lenten fast early in the morning when she came back from the Liturgy. She would have cream with her coffee, and the children knew that she would grumble all day and start to feel out of sorts by evening.

The hard-boiled egg would always get stuck somewhere in Liza’s chest and they would have to pummel her hard on the back to dislodge it.

The housekeeper, who on that day always smelt of vanilla, would come to wish them a happy Easter.

And she would tell them the story of how, twenty years ago, the mistress of a certain house had made a baba[3] using beaten egg white, and how the baba had “fallen in the oven”. And the mistress had strung herself up from the shame of it.

Liza knew this story, but she could never work out which of the two women had strung herself up and which had fallen into the oven: the baba or the mistress? She imagined a huge blazing oven, like the “fiery furnace” in the holy pictures into which the three youths were thrown.[4] And she imagined a great fat baba—the mistress—falling into the oven. In short, she couldn’t make head nor tail of it, but it was clearly something horrid, even though the housekeeper told the story cheerfully, with relish.

The housekeeper would also always reminisce about a certain August Ivanovich, a gentleman she had once worked for.

“Would you believe it—a German and all, but such a religious man he was! All through Holy Week he wouldn’t take a bite of meat. ‘It will taste all the better when I break my fast on Easter morning,’ he used to say. A German and all, but he would never sit down to Easter breakfast without ham on the table—not for all the world. That’s how religious he was!”

In the evening Liza remembered something very important, went along to her elder sister and said, “Last year, you told me you were already a growing girl, and I was still a child. But this year I fasted for Lent, so that means I’m a growing girl now too.”

Her sister turned away, annoyed, and muttered, “You may be a growing girl, but I’m a young lady. Anyway, you should be in the nursery. Go away, or I’ll tell Mademoiselle.”

Liza pondered these words bitterly. She would never catch up with Masha. In four years’ time she herself might be a young lady, but by then, Masha would already be an old maid. She would never catch up with her.[5]

The church is crowded and stuffy. Candles splutter quietly in the hands of the worshippers. A pale blue blanket of incense smoke is spread out high in the dome. Down below—the gold of the icons, black figures and the flames of the candles. All around—black, candlelight and gold.

Liza is tired. She breaks off pieces of melted wax, rolls them into pellets and sticks them back onto the candle, noting how much of the Gospel the priest has read. The priest is reading well, clearly enough for Liza to hear him even though she is standing a long way back.

Liza listens to the familiar phrases but cannot concentrate. She is distracted by the old woman in front of her, who keeps turning round malevolently and piercing Liza with a cold stare, with a yellow-ringed eye like the eye of a fish. The old woman is afraid that Liza will singe her fox-fur collar.

Liza is also distracted by all kinds of other thoughts. She is thinking of her friend: fair, curly-headed Zina. Zina is like a bee—all honey and gold. Her bronze hair grows in tight curls. One summer, at the dacha, Zina had been sitting holding a little lapdog, and a woman coming past had said, “Humph, just look at that… poodle!” And in all seriousness Zina had asked, “Was she talking about me, or Kadochka?” Zina is silly, and so like a bee that Liza calls her Zuzu.

What is the priest reading about now? “And the second time the cock crew.”[6] How had it all happened? Night. A fire in the courtyard of the high priest. It must have been cold. People were keeping warm next to the fire. And Peter was sitting with them. Liza loved Peter; for her he always had a special place among the apostles. She loved him because he was the most passionate of them. She didn’t like to think that Peter had denied Christ. When they had asked him if he had been with Jesus of Nazareth, and he had not admitted it, it was only because he didn’t want to be driven away. After all, he had followed Christ into the high priest’s courtyard—he had not been afraid then.

Liza thinks of how Peter wept and of how he walked away “the second time the cock crew”, and her heart aches, and, in her soul, she walks side by side with Peter, past the guards, past the terrible, cruel soldiers, past the high priest’s servants, who look on with malevolent suspicion, and out through the gate and into the black, grief-stricken night.

And so the night goes on. From the square outside Pontius Pilate’s house comes the hubbub of the crowd. And just then a voice, loud and forceful as fate itself, cries out, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” And it seems as if the flames of the candles shiver, and an evil black breath spreads through the church: “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” And from age to age it has been passed down, that evil cry. What can we do, how can we make amends, how can we silence that cry, so that we no longer need hear it?

Liza feels her hands grow cold; she feels her whole body transfixed in a sort of ecstasy of sadness, with tears running down her cheeks. “What is it? Why am I crying? What’s the matter with me?”

“Perhaps I should tell Zuzu,” she thinks. “But how can I make Zuzu understand? Will Zuzu be able to understand how the whole church fell silent, how the flames of the candles shivered, and how that loud, terrible voice called out, ‘Crucify Him! Crucify Him!’? I won’t be able to tell her all that. If I don’t tell it well, Zuzu won’t understand anything. But if she does understand, if she feels what I feel, how wonderful, how glorious that would be. It would be something quite new. I think somehow we would start to live our whole lives differently. Dear Lord, help me be able to tell it!”

Easter Sunday was always jolly. A great many visitors would come to wish them a happy Easter. Liza had put on a spring dress made to a pattern of her own choosing. And she had chosen it because the caption beneath it in the fashion magazine read: “A dress for the young lady of thirteen”. Not for a little girl, or for a growing girl, but for a young lady.

Zuzu came round for breakfast. She was looking pleased, as if she were full of secrets. “Let’s go to your room. Quick. I have so much to tell you,” she whispered.

The news really was extraordinary: a cadet! A divine cadet! And not a young boy, he was sixteen already. He could sing “Tell her that my fiery soul…”[7] Zuzu hadn’t heard him, but Vera Yaroslavtseva had told her he sang very well. And he was in love with Zuzu. He had seen her at the skating rink and on Palm Sunday at Vera Yaroslavtseva’s. He had seen Liza, too.

“Yes, he’s seen you. I don’t know where. But he said you were a magnificent woman.”

“Did he really?” Liza gasped. “Did he really say that? And what does he look like?”

“I don’t know for sure. When we went for a walk on Palm Sunday there were two cadets walking behind us, and I don’t know which of the two he was. But I think he was the darker one, because the other one was ever so fair and round, not the sort to have strong feelings.”

“And you think he’s in love with me, too?”

“Probably. Anyway, what of it? It’s even more fun if he’s in love with both of us!”

“Don’t you think that’s immoral? It feels a little strange to me.”

The bee-like Zuzu, all curls and honey, pursed her rosy lips mockingly.

“Well, I’m amazed at you, truly I am. The Queen of Sheba had all the peoples of the world in love with her—and here you are, afraid of just one cadet. That’s plain silly.”

“And it’s really true, what he said about me? That I’m…”

Liza was embarrassed to repeat those extraordinary words (“a mag-ni-fi-cent wo-man”).

“Of course it’s true,” said Zuzu, in a matter-of-fact way. “It’s what Vera Yaroslavtseva told me. Do you think she’d make up something like that just for fun? She’s probably bursting with envy.”

“But all the same, don’t you think it might be a sin?” Liza fretted. And then: “Wait, there’s something I wanted to tell you. And now I’ve forgotten. Something important.”

“Well, it’ll come back to you. We’re being called to breakfast.”

In the evening, when she was going to bed, Liza went up to the mirror, looked at her fair hair, at her sharp little face with its freckled nose, smiled and whispered, “A magnificent woman.”

The night was black.

Over to starboard, the sea flowed into the sky and it seemed that there, quite close, only a few metres from the ship, lay the end of the world. A black void, space, eternity.

Over to port, one or two little lights glimmered in the distance. They were alive, flickering, moving. Or were we just imagining this, since we all knew there was a town there? Living people, movement. Life.

After two terrible, boring weeks on board, with nobody sure where they were going and when they would arrive, or whether they would ever feel the earth beneath their feet again, or whether that earth would be kind to them or whether it would lead them to sorrow, torment and death; after that, how frustrating it was to see those living lights and not dare to sail towards them.

In the morning the captain promised to contact the shore, find out the situation there and then decide what to do.

Who was in the town? Who had control of it? Friend or foe? Whites or Reds? And if it was in enemy hands, where could we go? Farther east? But we wouldn’t get far on this little coaster. We’d be drowned.[8]

Tired people wandered about on deck, looking towards the lights.

“I don’t want to look at those lights,” said Liza. “It makes me feel even more hopeless. I’d rather look at the black, terrible night. It feels closer to me. But isn’t the sea making a strange booming sound? What is it?”

A sailor passed by.

“Can you hear?” asked Liza. “Can you hear the sea booming?”

“Yes,” said the sailor, “it’s church bells from the shore. That’s a good sign. It means the Whites are there. Today is Holy Thursday. The Feast of the Twelve Gospels.”

The Twelve Gospels. A memory comes back, from long ago. Black, gold, candlelight. The pale blue smoke of incense. A little girl with blond braids clasps her hands around a wax candle that drips and flickers. She clasps her hands and weeps, “What can we do, how can we make amends, how can we silence that cry, so that we need no longer hear it: ‘Crucify Him! Crucify Him!’”

How strangely and clearly it all came back to her! So much time had passed, such a vast life, and then suddenly that moment—which, at the time, she had forgotten almost immediately—had suddenly come right up to her, in the form of church bells booming over the water, in the form of lights glowing on the shore like wax candles. It had caught up with her and now it was standing there beside her. It would never go away again. Never again? And Zuzu? Would Zuzu come running up again too, to buzz, to dance, to fly around her? The Zuzus of this world run fast, after all. They always catch up…

“And the second time the cock crew…”

THE WHITE FLOWER

Our friends the Zaitsevs live out of town.[1]

“The air is so much better out in the suburbs,” they say.

That is, they can’t afford to live where the air is bad.

A small group of us went to visit them.

We set off without any mishap. That is, apart from minor details: we didn’t take enough cigarettes, one of us lost her gloves, another forgot her door key. And then, at the station, we bought one ticket less than we needed. Well, anyone can make a mistake. We counted wrong. Even though there were only four of us.

It was a little awkward, actually, that we counted wrong. Apparently, in Hamburg, there was once a horse that could count beautifully, right up to six…

And we got out without any mishap at the right station. Though we did get out once or twice before—at every station, as a matter of fact. But every time, realizing our mistake, we had, very sensibly, got back in the carriage.

When we arrived at our destination we had a few more awkward moments. It turned out that none of us knew the Zaitsevs’ address. Each of us was relying on the others.

A quiet, gentle voice came to our aid: “You’re here!”

It was the Zaitsevs’ daughter: a girl of eleven, clear-eyed, with blond Russian plaits just like I had had at that age (plaits pulled so many, many times by other children, plaits that brought me no end of grief!).

She had come to meet us.

“I really didn’t think you’d get here!” she said.

“Why?”

“Well, Mama kept saying that you’d either miss the train or get the wrong one.”

I was a little offended. I’m actually very punctual. Recently, when I was invited to a ball, not only did I not arrive late—I was a whole week early.

“Ah, Natasha, Natasha!” I said. “You don’t know me very well yet!”

Her clear eyes looked at me thoughtfully, then down at the ground.

Delighted that we now knew where we were going, we decided to go and sit in a café for a while, then to hunt down some cigarettes, then try to telephone Paris and then…

But the fair-haired girl said very seriously, “No, you absolutely mustn’t. We must go back home right away. They’re expecting us.”

So, shamefaced and obedient, we set off in single file behind the young girl.

We found our hostess at the stove.

She was looking bemusedly into a saucepan.

“Natasha, quick! Tell me what you think? What is this I’ve ended up with—roast beef or salt beef ?”

The girl had a look.

“No, my angel,” she said. “This time it looks like beef stew.”

“Wonderful! Who’d have thought it?” cried Madame Zaitseva, delighted.

Dinner was a noisy affair.

We were all very fond of one another, all enjoying ourselves, and all in the mood to talk. We all talked at once. Somebody talked about the journal Contemporary Notes.[2] Somebody talked about how you shouldn’t pray for Lenin. That would be a sin. After all, the Church didn’t pray for Judas. Somebody talked about Parisian women and dresses, about Dostoevsky, about the recent spelling reform,[3] about the situation of writers abroad and about the Dukhobors,[4] and somebody wanted to tell us how the Czechs cook eggs, but she never succeeded. She kept talking away, but she was constantly interrupted.

And in all the hubbub the young girl, now wearing an apron, walked round the table, picking up a fork that had fallen onto the floor, moving a glass away from the edge of the table, seeing to all our needs, taking our worries to heart, her blond plaits glinting as bright as ever.

At one point she came up to one of us and held out a ticket.

“Look,” she said. “I want to show you something. In your own home, is it you who looks after the housekeeping? Well, when you next buy some wine, ask for one of these tickets. When you’ve collected a hundred tickets, they’ll give you six towels.”

She kept pointing things out to us and explaining things. She very much wanted to help—to help us live in the world.

“How wonderful it is here,” enthused our hostess. “After the lives we led under the Bolsheviks! It’s barely believable. You turn on a tap—and water comes out. You go to light the stove—and there’s firewood already there.”

“Eat up, my angel,” the girl whispered. “Your food will go cold.”

We talked until it grew dark. The fair-haired girl had for some time been repeating something to each of us in turn. At last somebody paid attention.

“You need to catch the seven o’clock train,” she had been saying. “You must go to the station straight away.”

We grabbed our things and ran to the station.

There we had one last, hurried conversation.

“We need to buy Madame Zaitseva a dress tomorrow. Very modest, but showy. Black, but not too black. Narrow, but it must look full. And most important of all, one she won’t grow tired of.”

“Let’s take Natasha with us. She can advise us.”

And off we went again: Contemporary Notes, Gorky, French literature, Rome…

And the fair-haired girl was walking about, saying something, trying to convince us of something. At last, somebody listened.

“You need to go over the bridge to the other platform. Don’t wait till the train comes in or you’ll have to rush and you might miss it.”

The next day, in the shop, the graceful figure of Madame Zaitseva was reflected in two triple mirrors. A little salesgirl with pomaded hair and short legs was draping one dress after another over her. And on a chair, her hands politely folded, sat the fair-haired girl, dispensing advice.

“Oh!” said Madame Zaitseva, flitting about between the mirrors. “This one is lovely. Natasha, why aren’t you giving me any advice? Look, isn’t that beautiful—with the grey embroidery on the front. Quick, tell me what you think!”

“No, my angel, you mustn’t buy a dress like that. How could you go about every day with a grey stomach? It would be different if you had a lot of dresses. But as it is, it’s not very practical.”

“Well, fancy you saying that!” her mother protested. But she didn’t dare disobey.

We began to make our way out.

“Oh!” cried Madame Zaitseva, “Just look at these collars! They’re just what I’ve been dreaming of! Natasha, take me away from them quickly, don’t let me get carried away!”

Concerned, the fair-haired girl took her mother by the hand.

“Come this way, my angel, don’t look over there. Come over here and look at the needles and thread.”

“You know what?” whispered Madame Zaitseva, with a sideways glance at her daughter. “She heard what we were saying about Lenin yesterday. And in the evening she said, ‘I pray for him every day. People say he has much blood on his conscience. It’s a burden on his soul… I can’t help it,’ she said to me, ‘I pray for him.’”[5]