The Naked Year by Boris Pilnyak Page B

when people behave genteelly. Eh?… My dear younger brother, it’s time to sleep. Adieu!”
    Boris walks slowly away from Gleb. Gleb is a lot smaller than Boris. He, small, is overshadowed. Boris walks decisively away from Gleb, his head raised high, silent and serene. But in the corridor he lowers his head, his gait becomes flabby. His large feet shuffle weakly along.
    In his room Boris stops by the stove, leans his shoulder against its cold tiles, mechanically, obeying a habit which had persisted since winter, he rubs his hand over the tiles and presses himself–chest, stomach, knees–to the dead stove coldness.
    And night is already taking its nightly course. And the crimson dawn–blessed–is about to meet the June morning. Gleb is thinking about himself, about his brothers, about the Virgin, about the Archangel Varakhiil, whose dress must be bedecked with flowers–white lilies… The Revolution came like white blizzards and May storms. Art–ikonography–the old white churches with mica windows. If war broke out in fourteen–
    (In our Russia the woods and grasses burned in red conflagrations, like a red disk the sun rose and sank)
    â€“there, in Europe, engendered by the stock exchange, trusts, colonial politics, etc.,–if such a war could take place in Europe, then is it not the aspen stake to all European bowler hat CULTURE? –this Europe hung over Russia jerked up by Peter (the old white churches were bricked up then):–was our Revolution not a May storm?–and weren’t they March flood waters which washed away the scab of two centuries?–But surely there is no God, only an image–the dress of Varakhiil in white lilies!
    The artist Gleb Ordinin came here to the land of his birth, with the archeologist Baudek, in order to conduct excavations.
    And first to wake up in the house was the mother, Princess Arina Davidovna, née Popkova.
    In the torment of dawn dim patches of light lie down on the floor and along the ceiling. Beyond the grilles on the windows is the brilliant dawn, but in Arina Davidovna’s dark room it is dark, abundantly spread about are cupboards, chests of drawers, high-boys and two draped wooden beds. On the dark walls, in circular frames–you can hardly make them out–hang faded head and shoulder portraits and photographs.–And five minutes before Arina Davidovna is due to wake up, when sweetly still the Princess snores, her sister Yelena Yermilovna, née Popkova, noiselessly sits up in bed, crosses herself while getting dressed, brushes her thinning hair–and noiselessly glides through the gray dawn rooms. The house sleeps. Yelena Yermilovna inspects her dress in the entrance hall, and, unheard, opens the door on those who sleep. –And when the cuckoo cuckoos, Arina Davidovna awakes, crossing herself with her mighty hand. From the bed, from the Princess, from her feet comes the stinking smell of an unclean obese human body.
    â€œLet me, sister, put your stockings on your little legs,” says Yelena Yermilovna.
    â€œThank you, sister,” answers the Princess in a bass voice.
    The Princess washes herself the old-fashioned way–in a wash-hand basin. Then the old women pray aloud together, the Princess, moaning with difficulty lowers herself onto her knees three times–“Morning Prayer” “The Heavenly Kingdom” “The Pater Noster,” to her “Guardian Angel,” “To the Mother of God,”–for near ones, absent ones, for sailors and wayfarers. Yelena Yermilovna speaks, taking deep breaths–and speaks in a whispering recitative.
    Marfusha runs about through the rooms and says the same thing to all, learned by heart:
    â€œNatalya Yevgrafovna! Time you were off to the hospital, the samovar’s on the table, Mother is cursing!
    â€œAnton Nikolayevich! Time you were off shopping, the samovar’s on the table and Grandmother’s