Valentin Katayev. The Cottage in the Steppe

     a novel

     ___________________________________________

     TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN BY FAINNA SOLASKO AND EVE MANNING

     Russian original title: уСРНПНЙ Б ЯРЕОХ

     FOREIGN LANGUAGES PUBLISHING HOUSE Moscow

     OCR: http://home.freeuk.com/russica2/

     __________________________________________

     DESIGNED BY D. BISTI

     CONTENTS

     Death of Tolstoi

     Skeleton

     What Is a Red?

     A Heavy Blow

     Requiem

     The Resignation

     An Old Friend

     Gavrik's Dream

     A Jar of Jam

     Mr. Faig

     The Sailor's Outfit

     Departure

     The Letter

     On Board

     Istanbul

     Chicken Broth

     The Acropolis

     The New Hat

     The Mediterranean

     Messina

     Pliny the Younger

     Naples and the Neapolitans

     Alexei Maximovich

     Vesuvius

     A Cinder

     The Eternal City

     On the Shores of Lake Geneva

     Emigres and Tourists

     Love at First Eight

     A Storm in the Mountains

     The Home-Coming

     Precious Stones

     Sunday

     The Kite From a Shop

     The Bad Mark

     Auntie's New Idea

     The Old Woman

     Workers of the World, Unite!

     The New Home

     Snowdrops

     The Lena Massacre

     The First Issue of the Pravda

     The Cottage in .the Steppe

     The Death of Warden

     The Widow with a Child

     The Secret Note

     The Rendezvous

     Caesar's Commentaries

     Queen of the Market

     Friends in Need

     Don't Kick a Man When He's Down!

     Terenty Semyonovich

     Glow-Worms

     Moustache

     The Sail

     At the Camp-Fire

     Stars
DEATH OF TOLSTOI

     Gusts of wind from the sea brought rain and tore the umbrellas from people's hands. The streets were shrouded in the grey half-light, and Petya's heart felt just as dark and dreary as the morning.

     Even before he reached the familiar corner he saw a small crowd gathered around the news-stand. Stacks of overdue papers had just been dropped off and were being snatched up eagerly. The unfolded pages fluttered in the wind and were instantly spotted by the rain. Some of the men in the crowd removed their hats, and a woman sobbed loudly, dabbing a handkerchief at her eyes and nose.

     "So he is dead," Petya thought. He was near enough now to see the wide black mourning border around the pages and a dark portrait of Lev Tolstoi with his familiar white beard.

     Petya was thirteen and, like all young boys, he was terrified by thoughts of death. Whenever someone he knew died, Petya's heart would be gripped by fear and he would recover slowly as after a serious illness. Now, however, his fear of death was of an entirely different mature. Tolstoi had not been an acquaintance of theirs. Petya could not conceive of the great man as living the life of an ordinary mortal. Lev Tolstoi was a famous writer, just like Pushkin, Gogol, or Turgenev. In the boy's imagination he was a phenomenon, not a human being. And now he was on his deathbed at Astapovo Station, and the whole world waited with bated breath for the announcement of his death. Petya as caught up in the universal anticipation of an event that seemed incredible and impossible where the immortal known as "Lev Tolstoi" was concerned. And when the event had become a reality, Petya was so crushed by the news that he stood motionless, leaning against the slimy, wet trunk of an acacia.

     It was just as mournful and depressing at the gymnasium as in the streets. The boys were hushed, there was no running up and down the stairs, and they spoke in whispers, as in church at a requiem mass. During recesses they sat around in silence on the window-sills. The older boys of the seventh and eighth forms gathered in small groups on the landings and near the cloak-room where they furtively rustled the pages of their newspapers, since it was against the rules to bring them to school. Lessons dragged on stiffly and quietly with maddening monotony. The inspector or one of the assistant teachers would look in through the panes of the classroom door, their faces bearing an identical expression of cold vigilance. Petya felt that this familiar world of the gymnasium, with the official uniforms and frock-coats of the teachers, the light-blue stand-up collars of the ushers, the silent corridors where the tiled floor resounded to the click of the inspector's heels, the faint odour of incense near the carved oaken doors of the school chapel on the fourth floor, the occasional jangling of a telephone in the office downstairs, and the* tinkling of test-tubes in the physics laboratory-this was a world utterly remote from the great and terrible thing that, according to Petya, was taking place beyond the walls of the gymnasium, in the city, in Russia, throughout the world.

     What actually was taking place outside?

     Petya would look out of the window from time to time, but could see only the familiar uninteresting scene of the streets leading to the railway. He saw the wet roof of the law-court, a beautiful structure with a statue of the blind Themis in front. Beyond was the cupola of the St. Panteleimon Church, the Alexandrovsky district fire-tower and, in the distance, the damp, gloomy haze of the workers' quarter with its factory chimneys, warehouses and a certain leaden darkness on the horizon which reminded him of something that had happened long ago and which he could not quite place. It was only after lessons had ended for the day and Petya found himself in the street that he suddenly remembered it all.

     An early twilight descended on the city. Oil lamps lit up the shop windows, throwing sickly yellow streaks of light on the wet pavements. The ghostly elongated shadows of passers-by flitted through the mist. Suddenly there was a sound of singing. Row after row of people with their arms linked were Founding the corner. A hat-less student marched in front, pressing a black-framed portrait of Lev Tolstoi to his breast. The damp wind ruffled his fair hair. "You fell, a victim in the fight," the student was singing in a defiant tenor above the discordant voices of the crowd. Both the student and the procession of singing people had suddenly and with great force brought back to Petya a long-forgotten time and street. Then, as now, the pavement had glittered in the mist, and along it marched a crowd of students-mostly men and a few women wearing tiny karakul hats-and factory workers in high boots. They had sung "You fell a victim." A scrap of red bunting had bobbed over the heads of the crowd. That had been in 1905.

     As if to complete the picture, Petya heard the clickety-clack of horseshoes striking sparks on the wet granite cobbles. A Cossack patrol galloped out of a side-street. Their peakless caps were cocked at a rakish angle and short carbines dangled behind their shoulders. A whip cut the air near Petya and the strong odour of horses' sweat filled his nostrils. In an instant everything was a whirling, shouting, running mass.

     Petya held his cap with both hands as he jumped out of the way. He bumped into something hot. It turned over. He saw that it was a brazier outside the greengrocer's. The hot coals scattered and mixed with the smoking chestnuts. The street was empty.

     For days Tolstoi's death was the sole topic of conversation in Russia. Extra editions of the newspapers told the story of Tolstoi's departure from his home in Yasnaya Polyana. Hundreds of telegrams date-lined Astapovo Station described the last hours and minutes of the great writer. In a flash the tiny, unknown Astapovo Station became as world-famous as Yasnaya Polyana, and the name of the obscure station-master Ozolin who had taken the dying man into his house was on everybody's lips.

     Together with the names of Countess Sofya Andreyevna and Chertkov, these new names-Astapovo and Ozolin- which accompanied Tolstoi to his grave, were just as frightening to Petya as the black lettering on the white ribbons of the funeral wreaths.

     Petya noted with surprise that this death, which everyone regarded as a "tragedy," apparently had something to do with the government, the Holy Synod, the police, and the gendarmerie corps. Whenever he saw the bishop's carriage with a monk sitting on the box next to the coachman, or the clattering droshki of the chief of police, he was certain that both the bishop and the chief of police were rushing somewhere on urgent business connected with the death of Tolstoi.

     Petya had never before seen his father in such a state of mind, not actually excited, but, rather, exalted and inspired. His usually kind frank face suddenly became sterner and younger. The hair above his high, classic forehead was combed back student-fashion. But the aged, red-rimmed eyes full of tears behind his pince-nez conveyed such grief, that Petya's heart ached with pity for his father.

     Vasily Petrovich came in and put down two stacks of tightly bound exercise books on the table. Before changing into the old jacket he wore about the house, he took a handkerchief from the back pocket of his frock-coat with its frayed silk lapels and wiped his wet face and beard thoroughly. Then he jerked his head decisively.

     "Come on, boys, wash your hands and we'll eat!"

     Petya sensed his father's mood. He realized that Vasily Petrovich was taking Tolstoi's death badly, that for him Tolstoi was not only an adored writer, he was much more than that, almost the moral centre of his life. All this he felt keenly, but could not put his feelings into words.

     Petya had always responded quickly to his father's moods, and now he was deeply upset. He grew quiet, and his bright inquiring eyes never once left his father's face.

     Pavlik, who had just turned eight and had become a schoolboy, was oblivious to all that was taking place; he was completely absorbed in the affairs of his preparatory class and his first impressions of school.

     "During our writing lesson today we raised an obstruction!" he said, pronouncing the difficult word with obvious pleasure. "Old Skeleton ordered Kolya Shaposhnikov to leave the room although he wasn't to blame. Then we all booed with our mouths closed until Skeleton banged so hard on the desk that the ink-pot bounced up to the ceiling!"

     "Stop it! You should be ashamed of yourself," his father said with a pained look. Suddenly, he burst out, "Heartless brats! You should be whipped! How could you mock an unfortunate, sick teacher whose days are almost numbered? How could you be so brutal?" Then, apparently trying to answer the questions that had been worrying him all those days, he went on: "Don't you realize that the world cannot live on hate? Hate is contrary to Christianity and to plain common sense. And this at a time when they are laying to rest a man who, perhaps, is the last true Christian on earth."

     Father's eyes became redder still. Suddenly he smiled wanly and put his hands on the boys' shoulders. Gazing at each in turn he said:

     "Promise me that you will never torture your fellow-creatures."

     "I never did," Petya said softly.

     Pavlik screwed up his face and pressed his close-cropped head against Father's frock-coat which smelt of a hot iron and faintly of moth-balls.

     "Daddy, I'll never do it again. We didn't know what we were doing," he said, wiping his eyes with his fists and sniffling.
SKELETON

     It's terrible, say what you like, it's terrible," Auntie said at dinner. She put down the ladle and pressed her fingers to her temples. "You can think what you like about Tolstoi- personally, I look on him as the greatest of writers-but all his non-resistance and vegetarianism are ridiculous, and as for the Russian government, its attitude in the matter is abominable. We are disgraced in the eyes of the whole world! As big a disgrace as Port Arthur, Tsushima, or Bloody Sunday."

     "I beg you to-" Father said anxiously. "No, please don't beg me. We have a dull-witted tsar and a dull-witted government! I'm ashamed of being a Russian."

     "Stop, I beg you!" Father shouted. His chin jutted forward and his beard shook slightly. "His Majesty's person is sacred. He is above criticism. I won't permit it. Especially in front of the children."

     "I'm sorry, I won't do it again," Auntie answered hurriedly.

     "Let's drop the subject."

     "There's just one thing I can't understand, and that is how an intelligent, kind-hearted man like you, who loves Tolstoi, can honestly regard as sacred a man who has covered Russia with gallows and who-"

     "For God's sake," Father groaned, "let's not discuss politics. You are an expert at turning any conversation into a political discussion! Can't we talk without getting mixed up in politics?"

     "My dear Vasily Petrovich, you still haven't realized that everything in our lives is politics. The government is politics. The church is politics. The schools are politics. Tolstoi is politics."

     "How dare you speak like that?" "But I will!"

     "Blasphemy! Tolstoi is not politics." "That's exactly what he is!"

     And for long after, while Petya and Pavlik were doing their home-work in the next room, they could hear the excited voices of Father and Auntie, interrupting each other.

     "Master and Man, Concession, Resurrection!" "War and Peace, Platon Karatayev!" "Platon Karatayev, too, is politics!" "Anna Karenina, Kitty, Levin!" "Levin argued communism with his brother!" "Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre!" "The Decembrists!" "Haji Murat!" "Nikolai Palkin!" ( The derogatory nickname of Nicholas I, signifying "cudgel."-Tr).

     "Stop, I beg you. The children can hear us."

     Pavlik and Petya were sitting quietly at Father's desk, beside the bronze oil lamp with the green glass lampshade.

     Pavlik had finished his home-work and was busy putting together his new writing outfit of which he was still very proud. He was pasting a transfer on his pencil-box, patiently rolling up the top layer of wet paper with his finger. A multi-coloured bouquet of flowers bound with light-blue ribbons could be seen through it. He heard the voices in the dining-room, but did not pay any attention to them; his mind was full of the incident that had taken place during the writing lesson earlier" in the day. The "obstruction," which at first sight seemed such a daring and funny prank, now appeared in another light altogether. Pavlik could not banish the horrible scene from his eyes.

     There at the blackboard stood the teacher, old Skeleton. He was in the last stages of consumption and was ghastly thin. His blue frock-coat hung loosely about his shoulders. It was too long and old, and very worn, but there were new gold buttons on it. His starched dickey bulged casually on his sunken chest and a skinny neck protruded from the wide greasy collar. Skeleton stood stock-still for a moment or two, challenging the class with his dark eyes. Then he turned swiftly to the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk with his thin, transparent fingers, and began tracing out the letters.

     In the ominous quiet they could hear the scratching of the chalk on the slate: a light, delicate touch when he outlined a feathery curlicue and a loud screech as he drew an amazingly straight line at a slant. Skeleton would crouch and then suddenly straighten again, just like a puppet. He'd cock his head to one side, utterly oblivious to his surroundings, and either sing out "stro-o-ke" in a high thin voice, or "line" in a deep rasping one.

     "Stroke, line. Stroke, line."

     Suddenly a voice from the last row, still higher and as fine as a hair, mimicked, "Stro-o-ke." Skeleton's back twitched, as if he had been stabbed, but he pretended he hadn't heard. He continued writing, but the chalk was already crumbling in his emaciated fingers, and his large shoulder-blades jerked painfully beneath the threadbare frock-coat.

     "Stroke, line. Stroke, line," he sang out and his neck and large ears became crimson.

     "Stro-o-oke! Str-rr-oke! Stro-o-oke!" mimicked someone in the last row. All of a sudden Skeleton spun round, strode rapidly down the aisle and grabbed the first boy at hand. He yanked him up from his desk, dragged him to the door, and threw him out of the class-room. Then he banged the door so hard that the panes rattled and dry putty fell all over the parquet floor.

     Skeleton walked back to the blackboard with heavy steps. He was wheezing loudly as he picked up the chalk and was about to continue the lesson. Just then he heard the hum of steady, barely audible booing. Startled, he froze into immobility. His knees trembled visibly. His cuffs and baggy blue trousers trembled too. His black sunken eyes glared at the boys with undisguised hatred. But he had no way of finding out the culprits. They were all sitting with their mouths tightly shut, looking quite indifferent, and yet they were all booing steadily, monotonously, and imperceptibly. The whole class was booing, but no one could be accused of it. Then a tortured scream of pain and rage broke from his lips. He was jerking like a puppet as he hurled the chalk at the blackboard. It broke into bits. Skeleton stamped his foot. His eyes became bloodshot. His thin hair was plastered to his damp forehead. His neck twitched convulsively and he tore open his collar. He rushed over to his desk, hurled the chair aside, flung the class register against the wall, and began pounding the desk with his fists. He no longer heard his own voice as he shouted, "Ruffians! Ruffians!" The inkpot bounced up and down, and the purple liquid stained his loosened dickey, his bony hands and damp forehead. The scene ended when Skeleton, suddenly becoming limp, sat down on the window-sill, rested his head against the frame and was seized with a terrible coughing spell. His deeply sunken temples, almost black eye-sockets, and bared yellow teeth made his face look like the skull of a skeleton. Were it not for the sweat streaming down his forehead, one could have easily taken him for a corpse.

     That was the picture Pavlik could not banish from his mind. The boy felt terribly oppressed; however, his mental state in no way interfered with the job in hand. He bestowed special care on transferring the picture, for he did not want to make a hole in the wet paper and spoil the bouquet and light-blue ribbons that looked so bright in the light of the lamp.

     Petya, meanwhile, was absent-mindedly leafing through a thick notebook. There were emblems scratched out on the black oilskin cover-an anchor, a heart pierced with an arrow and several mysterious initials. He was listening to Father and Auntie arguing in the dining-room. Some words were repeated more often than others; they were: "freedom of thought," "popular government," "constitution," and, finally, that burning word-"revolution."

     "Mark my words, it will all end in another revolution," Auntie said.

     "You're an anarchist!" Father shouted shrilly.

     "I'm a Russian patriot!"

     "Russian patriots have faith in their tsar and their government!"

     "Have you faith in them?"

     "Yes, I have!"

     Then Petya heard Tolstoi mentioned once more.

     "Then why did this tsar and this government in whom you have such faith excommunicate Tolstoi and ban his books?"

     "To err is human. They look on Tolstoi as a politician, almost a revolutionary, but Tolstoi is simply the world's greatest writer and the pride of Russia. He is above all your parties and revolutions. I'll prove that in my speech."

     "Do you think the authorities will allow you to say that?"

     "I don't need permission to say in public that Lev Tolstoi is a great Russian writer."

     "That's what you think."

     "I don't think it-I am absolutely sure!"

     "You're an idealist. You don't know the kind of country you're living in. I beg you not to do that! They'll destroy you. Take my advice."
WHAT IS A RED?

     Petya woke up in the middle of the night and saw Vasily Petrovich sitting at his desk in his shirtsleeves. Petya was used to seeing his father correct exercise-books at night. This time, however, Father was doing something else. The stacks of exercise-books were lying untouched, and he was writing something rapidly in his fine hand. Little fat volumes of an old edition of Tolstoi's works were scattered about the desk.

     "Daddy, what are you writing?" "Go to sleep, sonny," Vasily Petrovich said. He walked over to the bed, kissed Petya, and made the sign of the cross over him.

     The boy turned his pillow, laid his head on the cool side and fell asleep again.

     Before he dozed off he heard the rapid scratching of a pen, the faint clinking of the little icon at the head of his bed, saw his father's dark head next to the green lamp-shade, the warm grow of the candle flame in the corner beneath the big icon, and the dry palm branch that cast a mysterious shadow on the wallpaper, as always bringing to mind the branch of Palestine, the poor sons of Solim, and the wonderful soothing music of Lermontov's poem:

     Peace and silence all around,

     On the earth and in the sky....

     Next morning, while Vasily Petrovich was busy washing, combing his hair, and fastening a black tie to a starched collar, Petya had a chance to see what his father had been writing during the night.

     An ancient home-made exercise-book sewn together with coarse thread lay on the desk. Petya recognized it immediately. Its usual place was in Father's dresser, next to the other family relics: the yellowed wedding candles, a spray of orange blossom, his dead mother's white kid gloves and little bead bag, her tiny mother-of-pearl opera-glasses, some dried leaves of a wild pear tree that grew on Lermontov's grave, and a collection of odds and ends which, in Petya's view, were just junk, but to Vasily Petrovich very precious.

     Petya had leafed through the exercise-book once before. Half of it was taken up with la speech Vasily Petrovich had written on the hundredth anniversary of Pushkin's birth; there had not been anything in the other half. The boy now saw that a new speech filled up this yellowed half of the book. It was written in the same fine hand, and its subject was Tolstoi's death. This is how it began:

     "A great Russian writer is dead. Our literary sun has set."

     Vasily Petrovich put on a pair of new cuffs and his best hollow-gold cufflinks, carefully folded the exercise-book in two and put it in his side-pocket. Petya watched his father drink a quick glass of tea and then proceed to the hall where he put on his heavy coat with the frayed velvet collar. The boy noticed that his fingers were trembling and his pince-nez was shaking on his nose. For some reason, Petya suddenly felt terribly sorry for his father. He went over to him and brushed against his coat-sleeve, as he used to do when he was a very small boy.

     "Never mind, we'll show them yet!" Father said and patted his son's back.

     "I still advise you against it," Auntie said solemnly as she looked into the hall.

     "You're wrong," Vasily Petrovich replied in a soft tremulous voice. He put on his wide-brimmed black hat and went out quickly.

     "God grant that I am wrong!" Auntie sighed. "Come on, boys, stop wasting time or you'll be late for school," she added and went over to help Pavlik, her favourite, buckle on his satchel, as he had not yet mastered the fairly simple procedure.

     The day slipped by, a short and, at the same time, an interminably long and dreary November day, full of a vague feeling of expectation, furtive rumour, and endless repetition of the same agonizing words: "Chertkov," "Sofya Andreyevna," "Astapovo," "Ozolin."

     It was the day of Tolstoi's funeral.

     Petya had spent all his life on the southern sea coast, in the Novorossiisk steppe region, and had never seen a forest. But now he had a very clear mental picture of Yasnaya Polyana, of woods fringing an overgrown ravine. In his mind's eye Petya saw the black trunks of the ancient, leafless lindens, and the plain pine coffin containing the withered, decrepit body of Lev Tolstoi being lowered into the grave without priest or choir boys attending. And overhead the boy could see the ominous clouds and flocks of crows, exactly like those that circled over the church steeple and the bleak Kulikovo Field in the rainy twilight.

     As usual, Father returned from his classes when the lamp had been lit in the dining-room. He was excited, happy and deeply moved. When Auntie, not without anxiety, asked him whether he had delivered his speech and what the reaction had been, Vasily Petrovich could not restrain the proud smile that flashed radiantly beneath his pince-nez.

     "You could have heard a pin drop," he said, taking his handkerchief out of his back-pocket and wiping his damp beard. "I never expected the young bounders to respond so eagerly and seriously. And that goes for the young ladies too. I repeated it for the seventh form of the Maryinsky School."

     "Were you actually given permission to do so?" "I didn't ask anyone's permission. Why should I? I hold that the literature teacher is fully entitled to discuss with his class the personality of any famous Russian writer, especially when the writer in question happens to be Tolstoi. What is more, I believe that it is my duty to do so." "You're so reckless."

     Later in the evening some young people, strangers to the family, dropped in: two students in very old, faded caps, and a young woman who also seemed to be a student. One of the youths sported a crooked pince-nez on a black ribbon, wore top-boots, smoked a cigarette and emitted the smoke through his nostrils; the young woman had on a short jacket and kept pressing her little chapped hands to her bosom. For some reason or other they were reluctant to come into the rooms, and remained in the hall talking with Vasily Petrovich for a long time. The deep, rumbling bass seemed to belong to the student with the pince-nez, and the pleading, lisping voice of the young woman kept repeating the same phrase over and over again at regular intervals:

     "We feel certain that as a progressive and noble-minded person and public figure, you won't refuse the student body this humble request."

     The third visitor kept wiping his wet shoes shyly on the door mat and blowing his nose discreetly.

     It turned out that news of Vasily Petrovich's talk had somehow reached the Higher Courses for Women and the Medical School of the Imperial University in Odessa, and the student delegation had come to express their solidarity and also to request him to repeat his lecture to a Social-Democratic student circle. Vasily Petrovich, while flattered, was unpleasantly surprised. He thanked the young people but categorically refused to address the Social-Democratic circle. He told them that he had never belonged to any party and had no intention of ever joining one, and added that he would regard any attempt to turn Tolstoi's death into something political as a mark of disrespect towards the great writer, as Tolstoi's abhorrence of all political parties and his negative attitude to politics generally were common knowledge.

     "If that's the case, then please excuse us," the young lady said dryly. "We are greatly disappointed in you. Comrades, let's go."

     The young people departed with dignity, leaving behind the odour of cheap tobacco and wet footprints on the doorstep.

     "What an astonishing thing!" Vasily Petrovich said as he strode up and down the dining-room, wiping his pince-nez on the lining of his house jacket. "It's really astonishing how people always find an excuse to talk politics!"

     "I warned you," Auntie said. "And I'm afraid the consequences will be serious."

     Auntie's premonition turned out to be correct, although the results were not as immediate as she had expected. At least a month went by before the trouble began. Actually, the approaching events cast a few shadows before them. However, they seemed so vague that the Bachei family paid little attention to them.

     "Daddy, what's a 'red'?" Pavlik asked unexpectedly, as was his wont, at dinner one day, his shining, naive eyes fixed on Father.

     "Really, now!" Vasily Petrovich said. He was in excellent spirits. "It's a somewhat strange question. I'd say that red means . . . well-not blue, yellow, nor brown, h'm, and so on."

     "I know that. But I'm talking about people, are there red people?"

     "Oh, so that's what you mean! Of course there are. Take the North American Indians, for example. The so-called redskins."

     "They haven't got to that yet in their preparatory class," Petya said haughtily. "They're still infants."

     Pavlik ignored the insult. He kept his eyes on Father and asked:

     "Daddy, does that mean you're an Indian?"


... ... ...
Продолжение "The Cottage in the Steppe" Вы можете прочитать здесь

Читать целиком

Прочитаные

The Cottage in the Steppe

показать все

Анекдот

ФСБ перевыполнила план по внедрению оперативников в банды. На данный момент насчитывается 15 группировок, состоящих полностью из оперативников ФСБ.

показать все