wait and see what happened.
In short, my life stabilized somewhat. I tried to think less about abstract topics. The cause of my unhappiness lay outside my field of vision. It was somewhere behind me. And I was relatively calm if I wasn’t looking back. Best not to look back.
In the meantime, I readLikhonosov.* Of course he is a good writer – talented, colourful, fluid. He recreates direct speech brilliantly. (Tolstoy should get such a compliment!) And yet at the heart of it is a hopeless, depressing and nagging feeling. A tedious and exhausted motif: “Where are you, Russia? Where did everything go? Where are the folk verses, the embroidered towels, the fancy headdresses? Where is the hospitality, bravery and the grand scale? Where are the samovars, icons, ascetics and holy fools? Where are the sturgeon and carp, the honey and caviar? Where are the regular horses, God damn it? Where is the chaste feeling of modesty?”
They are racking their brains:
“Where are you, Russia? Where did you disappear? Who ruined you?”
Who, who… Everyone knows who… There’s no need to rack your brain…
My relationship with Mikhail Ivanych was simple and consistent. In the beginning, he often came to see me, pulling out bottles from his pockets. I would wave my arms in protest. He drank directly from the bottle, muttering in a steady stream. It was with some difficulty that I caught the gist of his extensive monologues.
What’s more, Misha’s speech was organized in a remarkable way. Only nouns and verbs were pronounced with clarity and dependability. Mostly in inappropriate combinations. All secondary parts of speech Mikhail Ivanych used at his sole discretion. Whichever ones happened to turn up. Never mind the prepositions, particles and conjunctions. He created them as he went along. His speech was not unlike classical music, abstract art or the song of a goldfinch. Emotions clearly prevailed over meaning.
Let’s imagine I said:
“Misha, perhaps you should lay off the sauce, if only for a little while.”
In response I’d hear:
“Tha’ maggot-faggot, God knows wha’… Gets a fiver in the morning an’ shoot to the piss factory… Advance is on deposit… How’sa imma quit?… Whatsa smart in’at?… Where’sa spirit rise.”
Misha’s overtures were reminiscent ofthe Remizov school of writing.*
He called gossipy women prattletraps. Bad housewives – majordodos. Unfaithful women – peter-cheetahs. Beer and vodka – sledgehammer, poison and kerosene. And the young generation – pussberries…
“Copper-trouble pussberries be hullabaplonking an’ God knows whatsa at the centre…”
Meaning – the young generation, the underage bums are causing trouble and God knows what…
Our relationship was clearly defined. Misha would bring me onions, sour cream, mushrooms and potatoes from his mother-in-law. And he vehemently refused to take money. I, in turn, gave him a rouble every morning for wine. And kept him from trying to shoot his wife, Liza. Sometimes putting my own life in danger.
So we were even.
I never did figure out what sort of man he was. He seemed absurd, kind and inept. Once he strung up two cats on a rowan tree, making the nooses with a fishing line.
“Breeding shebangers,” he said, “catervaulting about…”
Once I accidentally bolted the door from the inside and he sat on the porch till morning, afraid to wake me up…
Misha was absurd in both his kindness and his anger. He reviled the authorities to their faces, but tipped his hat when passing a portrait of Friedrich Engels. He cursed the Rhodesian dictator, Ian Smith, relentlessly, but loved and respected the barmaid at a local dive who invariably short-changed him:
“That’s the way things are. Order is order!”
His worst insult went something like this:
“You’re bending over for the capitalists!”
Once officer Doveyko took a German bayonet away from a very drunken Misha.
“Serving the capitalists, you scum!”
In short, my life stabilized somewhat. I tried to think less about abstract topics. The cause of my unhappiness lay outside my field of vision. It was somewhere behind me. And I was relatively calm if I wasn’t looking back. Best not to look back.
In the meantime, I readLikhonosov.* Of course he is a good writer – talented, colourful, fluid. He recreates direct speech brilliantly. (Tolstoy should get such a compliment!) And yet at the heart of it is a hopeless, depressing and nagging feeling. A tedious and exhausted motif: “Where are you, Russia? Where did everything go? Where are the folk verses, the embroidered towels, the fancy headdresses? Where is the hospitality, bravery and the grand scale? Where are the samovars, icons, ascetics and holy fools? Where are the sturgeon and carp, the honey and caviar? Where are the regular horses, God damn it? Where is the chaste feeling of modesty?”
They are racking their brains:
“Where are you, Russia? Where did you disappear? Who ruined you?”
Who, who… Everyone knows who… There’s no need to rack your brain…
My relationship with Mikhail Ivanych was simple and consistent. In the beginning, he often came to see me, pulling out bottles from his pockets. I would wave my arms in protest. He drank directly from the bottle, muttering in a steady stream. It was with some difficulty that I caught the gist of his extensive monologues.
What’s more, Misha’s speech was organized in a remarkable way. Only nouns and verbs were pronounced with clarity and dependability. Mostly in inappropriate combinations. All secondary parts of speech Mikhail Ivanych used at his sole discretion. Whichever ones happened to turn up. Never mind the prepositions, particles and conjunctions. He created them as he went along. His speech was not unlike classical music, abstract art or the song of a goldfinch. Emotions clearly prevailed over meaning.
Let’s imagine I said:
“Misha, perhaps you should lay off the sauce, if only for a little while.”
In response I’d hear:
“Tha’ maggot-faggot, God knows wha’… Gets a fiver in the morning an’ shoot to the piss factory… Advance is on deposit… How’sa imma quit?… Whatsa smart in’at?… Where’sa spirit rise.”
Misha’s overtures were reminiscent ofthe Remizov school of writing.*
He called gossipy women prattletraps. Bad housewives – majordodos. Unfaithful women – peter-cheetahs. Beer and vodka – sledgehammer, poison and kerosene. And the young generation – pussberries…
“Copper-trouble pussberries be hullabaplonking an’ God knows whatsa at the centre…”
Meaning – the young generation, the underage bums are causing trouble and God knows what…
Our relationship was clearly defined. Misha would bring me onions, sour cream, mushrooms and potatoes from his mother-in-law. And he vehemently refused to take money. I, in turn, gave him a rouble every morning for wine. And kept him from trying to shoot his wife, Liza. Sometimes putting my own life in danger.
So we were even.
I never did figure out what sort of man he was. He seemed absurd, kind and inept. Once he strung up two cats on a rowan tree, making the nooses with a fishing line.
“Breeding shebangers,” he said, “catervaulting about…”
Once I accidentally bolted the door from the inside and he sat on the porch till morning, afraid to wake me up…
Misha was absurd in both his kindness and his anger. He reviled the authorities to their faces, but tipped his hat when passing a portrait of Friedrich Engels. He cursed the Rhodesian dictator, Ian Smith, relentlessly, but loved and respected the barmaid at a local dive who invariably short-changed him:
“That’s the way things are. Order is order!”
His worst insult went something like this:
“You’re bending over for the capitalists!”
Once officer Doveyko took a German bayonet away from a very drunken Misha.
“Serving the capitalists, you scum!”
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