wicker fence; there stood a table and chairs, and in the center of pitiful prickly shrubbery rose a single solitary cypress tree, dark and beautiful.
Kerbalay was a small, clever Tartar, in a blue shirt and white apron, he stood in the road and, holding his stomach, bowed low in greeting to the carriages and, smiling, displayed his shiny white teeth.
“Greetings, Kerbalayka!” Samoylenko called out to him. “We’ll ride a bit further, and you drag the samovar and chairs over! Be lively now!”
Kerbalay nodded assent with his closely cropped head and muttered something, and only those sitting at the back of the carriage could make out: “We have trout, Your Excellency.”
“Bring it over, bring it over!” Von Koren said to him.
Driving five hundred paces from the dukhan, the carriage stopped. Samoylenko selected a meadow that wasn’t too big, that was peppered with rocks, comfortable for sitting on, and where a tree fallen by a gale lay with upturned knotted roots and dried-out yellow needles. There was a sparse bridge of timber thrown across the little river, and on the other shore, exactly opposite them, on four not very tall pylons stood a little wooden shed used for drying corn, reminiscent of the cabin that stood on chicken legs in the folktale about Baba Yaga; a ladder had been lowered from its door.
Everyone had the same first impression, that they would never find their way out of this place. Wherever you looked, in every direction, mountains towered and closed in around them, and from the direction of the dukhan and the dark cypress the evening dusk quickly, quickly raced at them, and as a result the narrow, crooked Black River Valley became even more narrow and the mountains even higher. They could hear the roaring river and the cicadas’ ceaseless cries.
“How charming!” Maria Konstantinovna said, inhaling deeply in excitement. “Children, just look how good this all is! What quiet!”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, it is good,” agreed Laevsky, who had liked the view but for some reason, as he looked up at the sky and at the bluish smoke rising from the chimney pipe of the dukhan, suddenly became sad. “Yes, it’s good!” he repeated.
“Ivan Andreich, describe this view!” Maria Konstantinovna said, teary-eyed.
“What for?” Laevsky asked. “Your impression is better than some description. This wealth of color and sound that many experience in nature by means of their impressions, writers garble into a shameful, indecipherable scene.”
“Is that so?” Von Koren coldly asked, selecting the largest rock for himself near the water and attempting to climb atop it to have a seat. “Is that so?” he repeated, staring at Laevsky point-blank. “What about Romeo and Juliet? What about Pushkin’s Ukrainian night, for example? Nature is expected to arrive, bent low at the knee.”
“I suppose so …” agreed Laevsky, who didn’t have the energy to conceptualize or contradict. “By the way,” he said, after a moment had passed, “what is Romeo and Juliet in actuality? A beautiful, poetic sacred love, a bed of roses beneath which is hidden, rot. Romeo is the same kind of beast as anyone else.”
“No matter what anyone says to you, it all comes back to …”
Von Koren glanced at Katya and did not finish speaking.
“What do I come back to?” asked Laevsky.
“For instance, someone says to you: ‘What a lovely bunch of grapes!’ But you: ‘Yes, although it will look so disgraceful once chewed and digested in the stomach.’ What does this speak to? It’s nothing new but it’s a strange habit.”
Laevsky knew that Von Koren had no love for him. He feared him for this reason, and in his presence, he felt as though everyone were encumbered and that someone was looking over his shoulder. He did not give a reply, walked off to the side and regretted ever having come on the trip.
“Ladies and gentlemen, march! Find kindling for the fire!” commanded Samoylenko.
They all
Kerbalay was a small, clever Tartar, in a blue shirt and white apron, he stood in the road and, holding his stomach, bowed low in greeting to the carriages and, smiling, displayed his shiny white teeth.
“Greetings, Kerbalayka!” Samoylenko called out to him. “We’ll ride a bit further, and you drag the samovar and chairs over! Be lively now!”
Kerbalay nodded assent with his closely cropped head and muttered something, and only those sitting at the back of the carriage could make out: “We have trout, Your Excellency.”
“Bring it over, bring it over!” Von Koren said to him.
Driving five hundred paces from the dukhan, the carriage stopped. Samoylenko selected a meadow that wasn’t too big, that was peppered with rocks, comfortable for sitting on, and where a tree fallen by a gale lay with upturned knotted roots and dried-out yellow needles. There was a sparse bridge of timber thrown across the little river, and on the other shore, exactly opposite them, on four not very tall pylons stood a little wooden shed used for drying corn, reminiscent of the cabin that stood on chicken legs in the folktale about Baba Yaga; a ladder had been lowered from its door.
Everyone had the same first impression, that they would never find their way out of this place. Wherever you looked, in every direction, mountains towered and closed in around them, and from the direction of the dukhan and the dark cypress the evening dusk quickly, quickly raced at them, and as a result the narrow, crooked Black River Valley became even more narrow and the mountains even higher. They could hear the roaring river and the cicadas’ ceaseless cries.
“How charming!” Maria Konstantinovna said, inhaling deeply in excitement. “Children, just look how good this all is! What quiet!”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, it is good,” agreed Laevsky, who had liked the view but for some reason, as he looked up at the sky and at the bluish smoke rising from the chimney pipe of the dukhan, suddenly became sad. “Yes, it’s good!” he repeated.
“Ivan Andreich, describe this view!” Maria Konstantinovna said, teary-eyed.
“What for?” Laevsky asked. “Your impression is better than some description. This wealth of color and sound that many experience in nature by means of their impressions, writers garble into a shameful, indecipherable scene.”
“Is that so?” Von Koren coldly asked, selecting the largest rock for himself near the water and attempting to climb atop it to have a seat. “Is that so?” he repeated, staring at Laevsky point-blank. “What about Romeo and Juliet? What about Pushkin’s Ukrainian night, for example? Nature is expected to arrive, bent low at the knee.”
“I suppose so …” agreed Laevsky, who didn’t have the energy to conceptualize or contradict. “By the way,” he said, after a moment had passed, “what is Romeo and Juliet in actuality? A beautiful, poetic sacred love, a bed of roses beneath which is hidden, rot. Romeo is the same kind of beast as anyone else.”
“No matter what anyone says to you, it all comes back to …”
Von Koren glanced at Katya and did not finish speaking.
“What do I come back to?” asked Laevsky.
“For instance, someone says to you: ‘What a lovely bunch of grapes!’ But you: ‘Yes, although it will look so disgraceful once chewed and digested in the stomach.’ What does this speak to? It’s nothing new but it’s a strange habit.”
Laevsky knew that Von Koren had no love for him. He feared him for this reason, and in his presence, he felt as though everyone were encumbered and that someone was looking over his shoulder. He did not give a reply, walked off to the side and regretted ever having come on the trip.
“Ladies and gentlemen, march! Find kindling for the fire!” commanded Samoylenko.
They all
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