Dark Avenues / Темные аллеи. Книга для чтения на английском языке

“It’s time for you to sleep, sir,” she said, sitting down on the chest and stifling her yawns, covering her mouth with her withered little hand. “The night’s grown menacing now.”

“Why menacing?”

“Because it’s mysterious, when only the chanticleer, the cockerel, as we call it, and the night crow, the owl, can stay awake. Then the Lord Himself listens to the earth, the most important stars begin to twinkle, the ice holes freeze in seas and rivers.”

“And why is it you yourself don’t sleep at night?”

“I sleep as much as is needed as well, sir. Is an old person meant to have a lot of sleep? Like a bird on a branch.”

“Well, go to bed, only finish telling me about that wolf.”

“But you know, it’s a dark business, long ago, sir – perhaps a ballad.”

“What’s that you said?”

“A ballad, sir. That’s what all our masters used to say, they liked reading those ballads. Sometimes I’d be listening and there’d be a tingling on my head:

Howls the cold wind o’er the mountain,
Whirls in white the pasture,
Comes foul weather and the blizzard,
Buried deep’s the highway[28 - Howls the cold wind… the highway: A slightly inaccurate quotation from a poem by Alexei Fyodorovich Merzlyakov (1778–1830), “Black of brow and black of eye” (1803), set to music by D.N. Kashin (1769–1841). (прим. перев.) Воет сыр-бор за горою,/ Метет в белом поле, (Метелица в поле (у А.Ф. Мерзлякова))/ Стала (Встала) вьюга-непогода,/ Запала дорога…]

“How beautiful, Lord!”

“What’s beautiful about it, Mashenka?”

“What’s beautiful about it, sir, is you don’t know what it is that’s beautiful. It’s scary.”

“In the old days, Mashenka, everything was scary.”

“How can I put it, sir? Perhaps it’s true that it was scary, but it all seems dear to me now. I mean, when was it? Just so long ago – all the kingdoms have gone, all the oaks have crumbled from old age, all the graves are level with the earth. Now this story too – among the menials it used to be told word for word, but is it the truth? The story was supposed to have happened still in the time of the great Tsarina,[29 - in the time of the great Tsarina: Catherine the Great (1729–96) ruled Russia after her husband, Peter III, was deposed and killed in 1762. (прим. перев.)] and the reason why the prince was sitting in Krutiye Gory was supposed to be that she’d grown angry with him over something, had shut him up a long way away from her, and he’d become really fierce – most of all in the punishment of his serfs and in fornication. He was still very much in his prime, and as for his appearance, wonderfully handsome, and both among his menials and throughout his villages there wasn’t supposed to be a single girl he hadn’t demanded come to him, to his seraglio, for her wedding night. So he went and fell into the most terrible sin: he was even tempted by his own son’s new bride. The son was in St Petersburg in the military service of the Tsarina, and when he’d found himself his intended, he got permission for the marriage from his father and married, and so then he came with his new bride to pay his respects to him, to that there Krutiye Gory. And the father goes and falls for her[30 - to fall for smb – почувствовать влечение к кому-либо]. Not for nothing[31 - Not for nothing – Недаром], sir, is it sung about love:

Love’s fires rage in ev’ry kingdom,
People love all round the globe…[32 - Love’s fires rage… all round the globe: The closing lines of the poem ‘If young women, mistresses’ (published 1781) by Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov (1717–77). (прим. перев.) Жар любви во всяком царстве,/ Любится земной весь круг…]

And however can it be a sin, when even an old man’s thinking about his beloved, sighing over her? But here, after all, it was a completely different matter, here it was like it was his own daughter, and he’d stretched his grasping intentions to fornication.”

“And so what happened?”

“Well, sir, the young prince, remarking this parental design, decided to flee in secret. He put the stablemen up to it, gave them all sorts of presents, ordered them to harness up a good quick troika for midnight, stole out from his own family home as soon as the old prince had fallen asleep, led out his young wife – and he was off. Only the old prince wasn’t even thinking of sleeping: he’d already found everything out that evening from his informers and straight away gave chase. Night-time, an unspeakable frost, so there’s even rings lying round the moon, snows in the steppe deeper than the height of a man, but it’s all nothing to him: he flies along on his steed, sabres and pistols hanging all over him, beside his favourite whipper-in, and already he can see the troika with his son up ahead. He cries out like an eagle: stop, or I’ll shoot! But they don’t pay any heed[33 - to pay heed – обращать внимание] there, they drive the troika on at full blazing speed. Then the old prince began shooting at the horses, and killed as he rode first the one outrunner, the right-hand one, as it ran, then the other, the left-hand one, and already he meant to lay low the shaft horse, but he glanced to the side and sees rushing at him across the snow, beneath the moon, a great, fantastic wolf with eyes red like fire and with an aureole around its head! The prince set about firing at it too, but it didn’t even bat an eyelid[34 - not to bat an eyelid – глазом не моргнуть]: rushed at the prince like a whirlwind, jumped onto his chest – and in a single instant slashed through his Adam’s apple[35 - Adam’s apple – кадык] with its fang.”

“Ah, what horrors, Mashenka,” I said. “Truly, a ballad!”

“It’s a sin to mock, sir,” she replied. “God’s world is full of wonders.”

“I don’t disagree, Mashenka. Only it’s strange, nonetheless, that this wolf has been painted right beside the tomb of the prince it slaughtered.”

“It was painted, sir, as the prince himself wished; he was brought home still alive, and he had the time before dying to make his confession and take communion[36 - to take communion – причащаться], and in his final moment he ordered that wolf to be painted in the church above his tomb – as a lesson, then, for all the prince’s descendants. Who could possibly have disobeyed him in those days? And the church was his domestic one too, built by him himself.”

    3rd February 1938

Styopa

Just before evening on the road to Chern the young merchant Krasilschikov was caught by a thunderstorm and torrential rain. In a knee-length jacket with raised collar and a peaked cap pulled well down with streams running off it, he was riding quickly in a racing droshky[37 - racing droshky – беговые дрожки (легкий одноконный четырехколесный экипаж)], sitting astride right up against the dashboard[38 - dashboard – щиток (укрепляется в передней части экипажа, предназначен для защиты пассажиров от пыли и грязи)] with his feet in high boots pressed hard against the front axle, jerking with wet, frozen hands on the wet, slippery, leather reins, hurrying along a horse that was full of life anyway; to his left, beside the front wheel, which spun in a whole fountain of liquid mud, a brown pointer ran steadily with his long tongue hanging out.

At first Krasilschikov drove along the black-earth track beside the highway, then, when it turned into an unbroken grey, bubbling torrent, he turned onto the highway and began crunching over its little broken stones. Neither the surrounding fields nor the sky had been visible for a long time now through this flood, which smelt of the freshness of cucumbers and of phosphorus; before his eyes, like a sign of the end of the world, in blinding ruby fire, a sharp, nakedly branching flash of lightning kept searing sinuously down from above across a great wall of clouds, and with a crack above his head there would fly the sizzling tail, which then exploded in thunderclaps, extraordinary in their shattering power. Each time the horse would jerk its whole body forwards, pressing back its ears, and the dog was already at a gallop… Krasilschikov had grown up and studied in Moscow, had graduated from university there, but in the summer, when he came to his Tula estate, which resembled a rich dacha, he liked to feel himself a landowning merchant of peasant origin, he drank Lafitte[39 - Lafitte – Лафит, сорт французского красного вина] and smoked from a gold cigarette case, yet wore blacked boots[40 - blacked boots – сапоги, смазанные гуталином], a kosovorotka and poddyovka[41 - kosovorotka and poddyovka: A Russian peasant-style shirt fastened at the side and a light, tight-fitting, long-waisted coat respectively. (прим. перев.)], and was proud of his Russian character – and now, in the torrential rain and thunder, feeling the coldness of the water pouring from the peak of his cap and his nose, he was full of the energetic pleasure of rural life. This summer he often recalled the summer of the previous year, when, because of a liaison with a well-known actress, he had moped the time away in Moscow right up until July, until her departure for Kislovodsk: idleness, the heat, the hot stench and green smoke from the asphalt glowing in iron vats in the upturned streets, lunches in the Troitsky basement tavern with actors from the Maly Theatre who were preparing to leave for the Caucasus too, then sitting in the Tremblé coffee house, and waiting for her in the evening at his apartment with the furniture under covers, with the chandeliers and pictures in muslin, with the smell of mothballs… The summer evenings in Moscow are unending, it gets dark only towards eleven, and there you are, waiting, waiting – and still she’s not there. Then finally the bell – and it’s her, in all her summer smartness, and her breathless voice: “Please do forgive me, I’ve been flat on my back all day with a headache, your tea rose has completely wilted, I was in such a hurry I took a fast cab, I’m terribly hungry…”

When the torrential rain and the shaking peals of thunder began to die down and move away and it began clearing up all around, up ahead, to the left of the highway, the familiar coaching inn of an old widower, the petty bourgeois Pronin, appeared. There were still twenty kilometres to go to town – I should wait a little, thought Krasilschikov, the horse is all in a lather, and there’s still no knowing what might happen again, look how black it is in that direction, and it’s still lighting up… At the crossing point to the inn he turned at a trot and reined the horse in beside the wooden porch.

“Granddad!” he gave a loud cry. “You’ve got a guest!”

But the windows in the log building under its rusty iron roof were dark, nobody responded to the cry. Krasilschikov wound the reins onto the dashboard, went up onto the porch after the wet and dirty dog which had leapt up onto it – it had a mad look, its eyes shone brightly and senselessly – pushed the cap back from his sweaty forehead, took off his jacket, heavy with water, threw it onto the handrail of the porch, and, remaining in just a poddyovka with a leather belt decorated in silver, he wiped his face, mottled with muddy splashes, and began cleaning the mud from the tops of his boots with his whip handle. The door into the lobby was open, but there was a feeling of the building being empty. Probably bringing in the livestock, he thought, and, straightening up, he looked into the fields: should he drive on? The evening air was still and damp, in different directions in the distance quails were making a cheerful noise in corn crops heavy with moisture, the rain had stopped, but night was coming on, the sky and earth were darkening morosely, and a cloud beyond the highway, behind a low, inky ridge of woodland, was a still more dense and gloomy black, and a red flame was flaring up, widespread and ominous – and Krasilschikov strode into the lobby and groped in the darkness for the door into the living quarters. But they were dark and quiet, only somewhere on a wall was there a one-rouble clock ticking away. He slammed the door, turned to the left, groped for and opened another one, into the rest of the hut: again nobody, in the hot darkness the flies alone began a sleepy and discontented buzzing on the ceiling.

“As if they’d snuffed it![42 - As if they’d snuffed it! – Как подохли!]” he said out loud – and immediately heard the quick and melodious half-childish voice of Styopa, the owner’s daughter, who had slipped down from the plank bed[43 - plank bed – нары (кровать в виде дощатого настила на некотором возвышении от пола)] in the darkness.

“Is that you, Vasil Lixeyich? I’m here by meself, the cook had a row with Daddy and went home, and Daddy took the workman and went away into town on business, and he’s unlikely to get back today… I was frightened to death by the storm, and then I hear someun’s[44 - someune’s = someone’s] driven up, got even more frightened… Hello, please forgive me…”

Krasilschikov struck a match and illuminated her black eyes and swarthy little face:

“Hello, you little idiot. I’m going into town as well, but you can see what’s happening, I dropped in to wait it out… And so you thought it was robbers that had driven up?”

The match had begun to burn out, but it was still possible to see that little face smiling in embarrassment, the coral necklace on the little neck, the small breasts under the yellow cotton dress. She was hardly more than half his height and seemed just a little girl.

“I’ll light the lamp straight away,” she began hurriedly, made even more embarrassed by Krasilschikov’s penetrating gaze, and rushed to the lamp above the table. “God Himself sent you, what would I have done here alone?” she said melodiously, rising onto tiptoe and awkwardly pulling the glass out of the indented grille of the lamp, out of its tin ring.

Krasilschikov lit another match, gazing at her stretching and curved little figure.

“Wait, don’t bother,” he suddenly said, throwing the match away, and took her by the waist. “Hang on, just turn around to me for a minute…”

She glanced at him over her shoulder in terror, dropped her arms and turned around. He drew her towards him – she did not try to break away, only threw her head back wildly in surprise. From above, he looked directly and firmly into her eyes through the twilight and laughed:

“Got even more frightened?”

“Vasil Lixeyich…” she mumbled imploringly, and pulled herself out of his arms.

“Wait. Don’t you like me, then? I mean, I know you’re always pleased when I drop in.”

“There’s no one on earth better than you,” she pronounced quietly and ardently.

“Well, you see…”

He gave her a long kiss on the lips, and his hands slid lower down.

“Vasil Lixeyich… for Christ’s sake… You’ve forgotten, your horse is still where it was by the porch… Daddy will be coming… Oh, don’t!”

Half an hour later he went out of the hut, led the horse off into the yard, stood it underneath an awning, took the bridle off, gave it some wet, mown grass from a cart standing in the middle of the yard, and returned, gazing at the tranquil stars in the clear sky. Weak, distant flashes of summer lightning were still glancing from different directions into the hot darkness of the quiet hut. She lay on the plank bed all coiled up, her head buried in her breast, having cried her fill of hot tears from horror, rapture and the suddenness of what had happened. He kissed her cheek, wet and salty with tears, lay down on his back and placed her head on his shoulder, holding a cigarette in his right hand. She lay quiet, silent, and with his left hand, as he smoked, he gently and absent-mindedly stroked her hair, which was tickling his chin… Then she immediately fell asleep. He lay gazing into the darkness, and grinned in self-satisfaction: “Daddy went away into town…” So much for going away! It’s not good, he’ll understand everything at once – such a dried-up and quick little old man in a little grey poddyovka, a snow-white beard, but whose thick eyebrows are still completely black, an extraordinarily lively gaze, talks incessantly when drunk, but sees straight through everything.

He lay sleepless until the time when the darkness of the hut began to lighten weakly in the middle, between the ceiling and the floor. Turning his head, he saw the east whitening with a greenish tinge outside the windows, and in the twilight of the corner above the table he could already make out a large icon of a holy man in ecclesiastical vestments[45 - ecclesiastical vestment – церковное облачение], with his hand raised in blessing and an inexorably dread gaze. He looked at her: she still lay curled up in the same way, her legs drawn up, everything forgotten in sleep! A sweet and pitiful little girl.