“Oh, we can leave it there,” drawled Evgenia languidly, and the magical slit from which I had expected so much was abruptly extinguished. Somewhere a door slammed, Vanya’s faraway voice said something, by now unintelligible, and then followed silence and darkness. I lay on the sofa for a while longer and suddenly noticed that it was already dawn. Whereupon I cautiously made my way to the staircase and returned to my room.
I imagined rather vividly Vanya protruding the tip of her tongue at one side of her mouth and snipping off with her little scissors the unwanted Smurov. But maybe it was not so at all: sometimes something is cut off in order to be framed separately. And to confirm this last conjecture, a few days later Uncle Pasha quite unexpectedly arrived from Munich. He was going to London to visit his brother and stayed in Berlin only a couple of days. The old goat had not seen his nieces for a very long time and was inclined to recall how he used to place sobbing Vanya across his knee and spank her. At first sight this Uncle Pashaseemed merely three times her age but one had only to look a little closer and he deteriorated under your very eyes. In point of fact, he was not 50 but 80, and one could imagine nothing more dreadful than this mixture of youthfulness and decrepitude. A jolly corpse in a blue suit, with dandruff on his shoulders, clean-shaven, with bushy eyebrows and prodigious tufts in his nostrils, Uncle Pasha was mobile, noisy and inquisitive. At his first appearance he interrogated Evgenia in a sprayey whisper about every guest, quite openly pointing now at this person, now at that, with his index, which ended in a yellow, monstrously long nail. On the following day occurred one of those coincidences involving new arrivals that for some reason are so frequent, as if there existed some tasteless prankish Fate not unlike Weinstock’s Abum who, on the very day you return home from a journey, has you meet the man who had chanced to be sitting opposite you in the railway car. For several days already I had felt a strange discomfort in my bullet-punctured chest, a sensation resembling a draft in a dark room. I went to see a Russian doctor, and there, sitting in the waiting room, was of course Uncle Pasha. While I was debating whether or not to accost him (assuming thatsince the previous evening he had had time to forget both my face and my name), this decrepit prattler, loath to keep hidden a single grain from the storage bins of his experience, started a conversation with an elderly lady who did not know him, but who was evidently fond of openhearted strangers. At first I did not follow their talk, but suddenly Smurov’s name gave me a jolt. What I learned from Uncle Pasha’s pompous and trite words was so important that when he finally disappeared behind the doctor’s door, I left immediately without waiting my turn—and did so quite automatically, as if I had come to the doctor’s office only to hear Uncle Pasha: now the performance was over and I could leave. “Imagine,” Uncle Pasha had said, “the baby girl blossomed into a genuine rose. I’m an expert in roses and concluded at once that there must be a young man in the picture. And then her sister says to me, ‘It’s a great secret, Uncle, so don’t tell anyone, but she’s been in love with this Smurov for a long time.’ Well, of course, it’s none of my business. One Smurov is no worse than another, But it really gives me a kick to think that there was a time when I used to give that lassie a good spanking on her bare little buttocks, and now there she is, a bride. She simply worshipshim. Well, that’s the way it is, my good lady, we’ve had our fling, now let the others have theirs …”
So—it has happened. Smurov is loved. Evidently Vanya, myopic but sensitive Vanya, had discerned something out of the ordinary in Smurov, had understood something about him, and his quietness had not deceived her. That same evening, at the
I imagined rather vividly Vanya protruding the tip of her tongue at one side of her mouth and snipping off with her little scissors the unwanted Smurov. But maybe it was not so at all: sometimes something is cut off in order to be framed separately. And to confirm this last conjecture, a few days later Uncle Pasha quite unexpectedly arrived from Munich. He was going to London to visit his brother and stayed in Berlin only a couple of days. The old goat had not seen his nieces for a very long time and was inclined to recall how he used to place sobbing Vanya across his knee and spank her. At first sight this Uncle Pashaseemed merely three times her age but one had only to look a little closer and he deteriorated under your very eyes. In point of fact, he was not 50 but 80, and one could imagine nothing more dreadful than this mixture of youthfulness and decrepitude. A jolly corpse in a blue suit, with dandruff on his shoulders, clean-shaven, with bushy eyebrows and prodigious tufts in his nostrils, Uncle Pasha was mobile, noisy and inquisitive. At his first appearance he interrogated Evgenia in a sprayey whisper about every guest, quite openly pointing now at this person, now at that, with his index, which ended in a yellow, monstrously long nail. On the following day occurred one of those coincidences involving new arrivals that for some reason are so frequent, as if there existed some tasteless prankish Fate not unlike Weinstock’s Abum who, on the very day you return home from a journey, has you meet the man who had chanced to be sitting opposite you in the railway car. For several days already I had felt a strange discomfort in my bullet-punctured chest, a sensation resembling a draft in a dark room. I went to see a Russian doctor, and there, sitting in the waiting room, was of course Uncle Pasha. While I was debating whether or not to accost him (assuming thatsince the previous evening he had had time to forget both my face and my name), this decrepit prattler, loath to keep hidden a single grain from the storage bins of his experience, started a conversation with an elderly lady who did not know him, but who was evidently fond of openhearted strangers. At first I did not follow their talk, but suddenly Smurov’s name gave me a jolt. What I learned from Uncle Pasha’s pompous and trite words was so important that when he finally disappeared behind the doctor’s door, I left immediately without waiting my turn—and did so quite automatically, as if I had come to the doctor’s office only to hear Uncle Pasha: now the performance was over and I could leave. “Imagine,” Uncle Pasha had said, “the baby girl blossomed into a genuine rose. I’m an expert in roses and concluded at once that there must be a young man in the picture. And then her sister says to me, ‘It’s a great secret, Uncle, so don’t tell anyone, but she’s been in love with this Smurov for a long time.’ Well, of course, it’s none of my business. One Smurov is no worse than another, But it really gives me a kick to think that there was a time when I used to give that lassie a good spanking on her bare little buttocks, and now there she is, a bride. She simply worshipshim. Well, that’s the way it is, my good lady, we’ve had our fling, now let the others have theirs …”
So—it has happened. Smurov is loved. Evidently Vanya, myopic but sensitive Vanya, had discerned something out of the ordinary in Smurov, had understood something about him, and his quietness had not deceived her. That same evening, at the
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