The gosling was wise beyond his years. He dodged Olya and ran to his sire, a very large and stupid gander, and he told on her. The gander stretched his wings. Mischievously, Olya reached for another gosling—and something terrible happened. Lowering his neck to the ground, the gander menacingly advanced on Olya, hissing like a snake. Olya shrieked and ran. The gander gave chase. Olya looked back, shrieked louder, and blanched. Her pretty girlish face was distorted by horror and despair. Three hundred devils might have been chasing after her.
Hastening to her aid, I hit the gander over the head with my walking stick. But the wretched gander nipped the edge of her dress. Eyes wide, face distorted, trembling all over, Olya fell into my arms!
“What a coward you are!” I said.
“Beat it off!” she began to cry.
Her frightened little face was neither naive nor childlike. It was idiotic! Cowardice, ma chère, I cannot abide! Me married to a fainthearted, cowardly woman? I couldn’t imagine it.
That gander had spoiled everything. I calmed Olya down and went home. I couldn’t get her face, so cravenly idiotic, out of my mind. Olya had lost all her charm, and I broke up with her.
ANOTHER INCIDENT
Dear friend, you know of course that I am a writer. The gods have ignited their sacred flame within my breast. I have no right but to take up the pen. I am Apollo’s votary. Every beat of my heart, my each and every sigh, in short, all of me, I offer as a sacrifice upon the Muses’ altar! I write and write and write. Take away my pen and I’m dead. You laugh, you don’t believe me. I swear that it’s true!
You know, however, ma chère, that this world is no place for art. Vast and bountiful as the earth is, there is no place on earth for a writer. The writer remains an orphan, an outcast, a scapegoat, a helpless infant. I divide all of mankind into two camps: writers and enviers. The former write, while the latter, racked with envy, scheme and play all sorts of dirty tricks on them. I have died many deaths and I will die many more because of the envy of these enviers. They’ve ruined my life. Calling themselves editors and publishers, they’ve positioned themselves at the helm of the literary world, where they do everything they can to drown us writers. A pox upon them!
Listen . . .
For a while I courted Zhenya Pshikova. You remember Zhenya, of course—that charming, black-haired, dreamy child, now married to your neighbor Karl Ivanovich Wanze (à propos: Wanze means bedbug in German. Don’t tell Zhenya—you’ll hurt her feelings). Zhenya loved the writer in me. She believed in my calling as fervently as I did. She lived and breathed my ambition. But she was so young! She couldn’t understand that mankind was divided into two camps! She didn’t believe it! She didn’t believe it, until one fine day . . . And then we were done for.
I was living at the Pshikov family dacha. I was the groom, Zhenya—my bride. I wrote. She read. What a critic she was, ma chère! As just as Aristides and as stern as Cato. I dedicated all my writings to her. Zhenya liked one of my pieces in particular. She wished to see it in print. I sent it off to a humor magazine on the first of July, expecting a response in the next issue, two weeks later. Finally, the fifteenth of July had arrived—and with it the long, long-awaited magazine. Zhenya and I rushed to open it. In the “Responses to Our Correspondents” section, we read—she blushing, I blanching: “Shlendovo Village. For Mr. M. B-u. You haven’t got a drop of talent. What the hell is this gobbledygook? Don’t waste stamps and leave us alone. Take up something else.”
Idiotic! You could see right away what fools they were!
“What scoundr-r-r-rels!” I fumed. “How do you like that? And now will you smile when I tell you humanity is split into two camps?”
“Hmmm . . .” Zhenya mumbled. She thought for a while, then she yawned. “Well,” she said, “maybe you don’t have any talent! They should know, after all. Last year, Fedor Fedoseevich spent the whole summer fishing with me, but you just go on writing. It’s so boring!”
How do you like that? After those nights that we had spent writing and reading together! After jointly serving at the Muses’ altar. Well?
Zhenya didn’t care for my writing, which meant she couldn’t care for me. That’s how it was! We broke up.
THIRD INCIDENT
You know, my cherished friend, how desperately I love music. Music is my passion, my element. The names of Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Gounod—these are names not of mortal men but of giants! I love classical music. I despise operetta, just as I despise vaudeville. I’m one of the most avid operagoers. Khokhlov, Kochetova, Bartsal, Usatov, Korsov* . . . fabulous people! That I am not acquainted with any opera singers personally is a matter I deeply regret! Were I, I would pour out my soul in gratitude. Last winter I went to the opera again and again. Not alone, but in the company of the Pepsinov family. What a pity you don’t know this lovely family! They take a box at the opera every winter. They’re entirely devoted to music. The adornment of this lovely family is the colonel’s daughter, Zoya. And what a girl she is, my dear! Her rosy lips are enough to drive a man like me wild! Slender, beautiful, smart. I loved her. I loved her madly, passionately, terribly! Blood coursed through my veins when I sat next to her. You smile, ma chère. Smile, if you wish! The love of a writer is incomprehensible and foreign to you. A writer’s love is Mount Etna and Mount Vesuvius combined. Zoya loved me. Always, her eyes rested on mine; always, mine searched for hers. We were happy. Marriage was just a step away.
We were doomed.
Faust was being performed. Faust, my dear, composed by Gounod, a great composer. On the way to the opera, I decided that during the first act I would declare my intentions to Zoya. I don’t understand the first act of Faust. The great Gounod should never have written that first act!*
The performance began. Zoya and I hid ourselves away in the foyer. She sat beside me, trembling with joy and anticipation, while absentmindedly fiddling with her fan. She looked so beautiful in the evening lighting, ma chère. She always did. So terribly beautiful!
I began, “The overture, Zoya, has inspired me. There’s so much feeling there. You listen, you yearn, you yearn for something. You listen . . .” I hiccuped. I went on. “You yearn for something special. Something otherworldly. Love? Passion? Yes, it must be. Love . . .” I hiccuped. “Yes, love . . .”
Zoya smiled. She was embarrassed. She fanned herself faster. I hiccuped. How I hate hiccups!
“Zoya Egorovna! Tell me, I beg you! Do you know this feeling too?” I hiccuped. “Zoya Egorovna! I await your answer!”
“I—I don’t understand . . .”
“I’ve got the hiccups . . . It’ll pass . . . I’m talking about that all-encompassing feeling that . . . Oh, damn it!”
“Why don’t you drink a glass of water!”
I’ll declare my feelings—I thought—and then I’ll go to the bar. I continued: “I’ll be brief, Zoya Egorovna. You must have already noticed—” I hiccuped. In annoyance, I bit my own tongue. “You must have noticed, of course—” I hiccupped. “You’ve known me for almost a year. I’m an honest man, Zoya! A hard worker! I’m not rich, that’s true, but—” I hiccupped. I leapt up.
“Why don’t you drink some water,” Zoya counseled.
I walked up and down beside the sofa. I pressed my finger to my throat. Again, I hiccuped. Ma chère, I was in a terrible bind! Zoya got up and went to the box. I followed. I opened the door to the box for her, hiccuped, and ran to the bar. I drank five glasses of water. The hiccups seemed to have settled down. I smoked a cigarette and headed for the box. Zoya’s brother stood and offered me his seat, a seat beside my Zoya. I sat down and immediately I hiccuped. Five minutes passed, but then I hiccuped again—a strange wheezy hiccup. I got up and went to stand by the door of the box. It is better, ma chère, to hiccup by the door rather than into the ear of a woman one loves! I hiccuped. The schoolboy in the neighboring box looked at me and laughed loudly. With what delight he laughed, the scoundrel! With what delight I would have taken that obnoxious little brat by the ear and ripped it right off! He was laughing while the great Faust was being performed on the stage! It’s sacrilege! No, ma chère, when we were young, we were better behaved than the youth of today. Cursing the impertinent schoolboy, I hiccuped again. Laughter came from the neighboring boxes.