Notes on the Cuff and Other Stories (4 page)

"Sorry, it's not so much the side-whiskers, but
Pushkin
never played cards, and if he had, he would never
have cheated!"

"What have cards got to do with it? I don't
understand! You're making a mockery of me, I see!"

"Pardon me, but it is you who are making a
mockery. Your
Pushkin
has the eyes of a
scoundrel!" "Ah, so that's it!"

She threw down her brush. And called from the door:
"I'll complain to the Sub-Section about you!"

And then what happened! As soon as the curtain went up
and
Nozdryov
appeared before the darkened hall with
his sly grin, the first ripple of laughter broke out. Oh, my God! The audience
had decided that after Chekhov's humour they were going to get
Pushkin's
humour! I began to talk in a cold sweat of
"the Aurora Borealis in the snow-bound wastes of Russian
belles-lettres". There were sniggers in the audience at the side-whiskers.
Nozdryov
skulked behind me, grunting:

"If I were your boss, I'd string you up on the
nearest tree!"

So I couldn't stop myself and let out a snigger too.
The success was overwhelming, phenomenal. Neither before nor after have I
ever been
the recipient of such thunderous applause. And
then it began to crescendo. When
Salieri
poisoned
Mozart in the dramatised excerpt the audience expressed its delight with
approving guffaws and thunderous cries of "Encore!"

Scampering rat-like out of the theatre I saw from the
corner of my eye the poetry brawler scurry into the editorial office with his
notebook...

*

I knew as much! On the very front page, fourth column:

MORE PUSHKIN!

Writers from the capital who are skulking in the local
Arts Sub-Section have made a new objective attempt to corrupt the, public by
stuffing their idol
Pushkin
down its throat.

They even took the liberty of portraying this idol as
a landlord and
serfowner
(which he was) with
side-whiskers... And so on.

Dear God. Please let that brawler die! Everyone's
catching typhus these days. Why can't he get it too? That cretin will get me
arrested!

And that infernal old hag from Fine Arts!

Ruined.
Everything's ruined. They've banned the evenings...

...Ghastly autumn.
Rain lashing
down.
Can't think what we're going to eat. What on earth are we going to
eat?

…………………………………………………………………………

Late one hungry evening, I wade through puddles in the
dark. Everything's boarded up. My feet are in tattered socks and battered
shoes. There is no sky. In its place hangs a huge foot-binding. Drunk with
despair, I mutter:

"Alexander
Pushkin
.
Lumen
coelum
.
Sancta
rosa
.
⁽¹⁶⁾
And his threats ring out like thunder."

Am I going mad? A shadow runs from the street lamp.

It's my shadow, I know. But why is it wearing a top
hat, when I've got a cap on?
Had to take my top hat to market
to buy some food.
Some good folk bought it to use as a
chamberpot
. But I won't sell my heart and brains, even if
I'm starving. Despair. A foot-binding overhead and a black mouse in my heart...

I'm starving ………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

"A hundred thousand... I've got a hundred
thousand! , I earned it!

A barrister's clerk, one of the natives, taught me
how. He arrived one day when I was sitting silently, head in hands, and said:

"I'm broke too. There's only one solution — we
must write a play.
A revolutionary play.
About the life of the natives.
And sell it..."

I stared at him vacantly and replied: "I can't
write anything about the life of the natives, revolutionary or
counter-revolutionary. I know nothing about their life. In fact I can't write
anything at all. I'm tired, and I don't think I'm any good at writing
anyway."

"You're talking nonsense," he answered.
"It's because you're hungry. Be a man. The life of the natives is a cinch.
I know it inside out. We'll write the play together. And split the money
fifty-fifty."

So we started to write. There was a round hot stove at
his place. His wife would hang up the washing on a line in the room, then give
us some beetroot salad with vegetable oil and tea with saccharine. He told me
some common names and customs, and I made up the plot. So did
he
. And his wife sat down and advised us too. I realised at
once they were much better at it than me. But I didn't feel envious, because I
had already decided this was the last play I would ever write...

And so we wrote it. He basked by the stove saying:
"I love creating!" I scratched away with my pen...

A week later the three-act play was ready. When I read
it through to myself in my unheated room at night, I'm not ashamed to admit
that it brought tears to my eyes! In terms of crassness it was unique,
remarkable! Something obtuse and insolent stared out of every line of this
collective creation. I couldn't believe my eyes. What could I hope for,
imbecile, if I wrote like that? Shame stared at me from the damp green walls
and the terrible black windows. I began to tear up the manuscript. But then I
stopped. Because suddenly with remarkable, unusual clarity I realised the truth
of the saying: once written, never destroyed. A work can be torn up, burnt,
concealed from others. But never from oneself! It was the end of me! It could
never be erased. This astounding thing had been written by me. It was the end
!..

*

The play caused a sensation in the native Sub-Section.
They bought it at once for two hundred thousand. And a fortnight later it was
performed on the stage.

Eyes, daggers and cartridge pockets flashed in the
mist of a thousand bated breaths. After heroic horsemen rushed in and grabbed
the chief of police and guards in the third act the Chechens,
Kabardians
and
Ingushes
yelled:
"
Zere
!
Serves him right,
ze
cur!"

And following the Sub-Section ladies they shouted:
"Author!"

There was a lot of handshaking backstage.

"
Vairy
gut
play!"

And invitations to visit their mountain
villages.

*

Must run! Must run!

Quickly.
A hundred thousand is enough to get out of here. Forward.
To the sea.
Over one sea and another to
France
and dry land — to
Paris
!

A driving rain lashed my face as, hunched up in my
greatcoat, I ran along the alleys for the last time — home...

You —
prosewriters
and
playwrights in
Paris
and
Berlin
— just you try. Try, for the fun of
it, to write something worse. If you are as talented as
Kuprin
,
Bunin
or Gorky you will not succeed. It is I who hold
the record!
For collective creativity.
The three of us
wrote it: me, the barrister's clerk and hunger.
At the
beginning of nineteen twenty one...

The town at the foot of the mountains has vanished.
Curse it...
Tsikhidziri
.
Makhindzhauri .
Green
Cape
!
Magnolias
in bloom.
White flowers the size of plates.
Bananas.
Palm trees! I saw them
myself,
I swear it, palm trees
growing out of the ground.
And the sea singing endlessly by
granite cliffs.
The books were right. The sun sinks into the water.
The beauty of the sea.
The high vault of
the heavens.
The steep cliff, with creeping plants on
it.
Chakva
.
Tsikhidziri .
Green
Cape
.

Where am I going? Where? I'm wearing my last shirt.
With crooked letters on my cuffs.
And
heavy hieroglyphs in my heart.
I have deciphered only one of these
mysterious signs. It says: woe is me! Who will interpret the others for me?

*

I lie like a corpse on pebbles washed by salt water. I
am weak with hunger. My head aches from morning to midnight. Now it is night. I
cannot see the sea, only hear it rolling.
Surging to and fro.
A tardy wave hisses. Suddenly three tiers of lights emerge from behind a dark
promontory.

The
Polatsky
is
sailing to the
Golden Horn
.

……………………………………………………………….

Tears salty as sea water.

Saw a poet, one of the unknown. He was walking round
Nuri
Bazaar
trying
to sell his hat. The peasants laughed at him.

He smiled shamefacedly and explained he wasn't joking.
He was selling his hat because his money had been stolen. That was a lie. He'd
been broke for ages.
Hadn't eaten for three days.
He
confessed later, when we were sharing a pound of cheese. Told me he was on his
way from
Penza
to
Yalta
. I nearly burst out
laughing. But then I remembered: what about me?

*

My cup is full to overflowing. The "new
head" arrived at twelve o'clock.

He walked in and said:

"
Ve
vill
take a different path! No more of
ziss
pornographia
:
Vit
Vorks
Voe
and
The Government Inspector
by Goggle.
Boggle.
Ve
vill
write our
own plays."

Then he got into his car and drove off.

His face imprinted itself on my memory forever.

*

An hour later I sold my overcoat at the bazaar. There
was an evening boat. But he wouldn't let me go. Understand? Wouldn't let me go
!..

*

I've had enough! Let the
Golden
Horn
shine. I'll never reach it. There's a limit to a man's
strength. Mine's finished. I'm starving, broken! There's no blood in my brain.
I'm weak and scared. But I won't stay here any longer. So ... that means ...
that
means ...

Going home.
By sea.
Then by goods van.
And if the money runs out — on foot.
But I'm going
home. My life is ruined. I'm going home!

To
Moscow
!
To
Moscow
!

……………………………………………………………………

Farewell,
Tsikhidziri
.
Farewell,
Makhindzhauri
.
Green
Cape
,
farewell!