Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov (Penguin Classics) (26 page)

We all laughed. ‘But why? What’s so special about turning into a dog? If one could turn oneself into a millionaire, that would be different. Or some hero or other, or a famous general – or a great beauty for that matter. But who wants to turn into a dog? Where would that get you?’

No one told any more stories that evening. We talked about this and that, then went our separate ways.

The following morning Tolya and I went into the forest. We picked some berries, but there were too few to take back to the dining room so we decided I might as well eat them myself. We sat down beneath a fir tree, me eating berries and him just looking at me. Somehow this began to seem very funny.

‘Tolya,’ I said, ‘you’re staring at me the way that dog of yours looked at the miller.’

‘Really I wish I could turn into a dog,’ he answered glumly, ‘because you’re never going to marry me, are you?’

‘No, Tolya, you know I’m not.’

‘You see, if I remain a man, it’ll be impossible for me to be near you all the time. But if I turn into a dog, no one can stop me.’

I had a sudden idea. ‘Tolya, darling! You know what? You could go to the mill and spend the night there. Please do! Turn into a dog, so that you can always be near me. You’re not going to say you’re scared, are you?’

He turned quite white – I was surprised, because all of this was just stuff and nonsense. I was joking. Neither of us, it went without saying, believed in that mysterious dog. But he, for some reason or other, turned pale and replied very gravely, ‘Yes, all right, I’ll go and spend the night at the mill.’

The day went by in its usual way and, after my morning walk, I didn’t see Tolya at all. In fact, I didn’t even think of him.

I remember some guests coming round – newlyweds from a neighbouring estate, I think. In short, there were lots of people – lots of noise and laughter. And it was only in the evening, when everyone except family had left and we youngsters had set out for our usual walk, that I began to think about Tolya again. It must have been when I saw the mill – and when someone said, ‘Doesn’t the mill look dark and spooky this evening?’

‘That’s because we know the kind of things that go on there,’ replied Vanya Lebedev.

Then I started looking for Tolya. Turning round, I saw him sitting a little apart from the rest of us. He was completely silent, as if deep in thought.

Then I remembered what he’d said, and somehow this made me feel anxious. At the same time, I felt annoyed with myself for feeling anxious, and this made me want to make fun of Tolya.

‘Listen, ladies and gentlemen!’ I called out merrily. ‘Tolya’s decided to conduct an experiment. Transformation into a dog. He’s going to spend the night at the mill.’

No one paid much attention to any of this. They probably thought I was joking. Only Vanya Lebedev answered, saying, ‘Yes, why not? Only please, dear Anatoly, be sure to turn into a hunting dog. That really would be a great deal more acceptable than a mere mongrel.’

Tolya didn’t say anything in reply. He didn’t even move. When we were on our way home, I purposely lagged behind a little and Tolya joined me.

‘Well, Lyalechka,’ he said. ‘I’m going. I’m going to the mill tonight.’

Looking very mysterious, I whispered, ‘Go then. You must. But if, after this, you have the nerve
not
to turn into a dog, please never let me set eyes on you again!’

‘I promise to turn into a dog,’ he said.

‘And I,’ I said, ‘will be waiting for you all night. As soon as you’ve turned yourself into a dog, run straight back home and scratch on my shutter with your claws. I’ll open the window, and then you can jump into the room. Understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘Off you go then!’

And so I went to bed and began to wait. And just imagine – I couldn’t get to sleep. Somehow I was terribly anxious.

There was no moon that night, but the stars were shining. I kept getting up, half-opening the window and looking out. I felt very scared of something. I felt scared even to open the shutters – I just looked out through a chink.

‘Tolya’s a fool,’ I said to myself. ‘What’s got into him? Sitting on his own all night in a dead mill!’

I fell asleep just before dawn. And then, through my dreams, I hear a scratching sound. Somebody’s scratching on the shutter.

I jump out of bed to listen better. Yes, I can hear the sound of claws against the shutter. I’m so scared I can hardly breathe. It’s still dark, still night-time.

But I braced myself, ran to the window, flung open the shutters – and what did I see? Daylight! Sunshine! And Tolya’s
standing there laughing – only he’s looking very pale. Overcome with joy, I grab him by the shoulders, then fling my arms round his neck.

‘You scoundrel! How dare you not turn into a dog?’

He just kissed my hands, happy that I had embraced him.

‘Lyalechka,’ he said, ‘can’t you see? Or maybe you just don’t know how to look properly. I
am
a dog, Lyalechka. I am your faithful hound forever. How can you not see it? I shall never leave you. But someone’s put an evil spell on you that stops you from understanding.’

I grabbed a comb from the table, kissed it and threw it out the window.

‘Fetch!’

He rushed off, found the comb in the grass and brought it to me between his teeth. He was laughing, but there was something in his eyes that almost made me burst into tears.

All this happened as summer was drawing to a close.

Three or four days after that night, my aunt and I went back to our own village. We needed to get ready to return to Petersburg.

Volodya Katkov rather surprised me. He had got hold of a camera from somewhere, and during the days before our departure he kept on and on taking photographs of me.

Tolya kept at a distance. I barely saw him. And he left before me. For Smolensk. He was studying there.

Two years went by.

I only once saw Tolya during that time. He had come to Petersburg for a few days to attend to some practical matter, and he was staying with the Katkovs.

He had changed very little. He still had the same round, childish face, with grey eyes.

‘Greetings, my faithful hound! Let me take your paw!’

He didn’t know what to say. Terribly embarrassed, he just laughed.

Throughout his visit Zina Katkova kept sending me little notes: ‘You really must come round this evening. Your hound
keeps howling.’ Or: ‘Come round as soon as you can. Your hound is wasting away. Cruelty to animals is a sin.’

Everyone kept quietly making fun of him, but he behaved very calmly indeed. He didn’t seek me out, and he went on hiding behind other people’s backs.

There was just one occasion when Tolya seemed to go a bit wild. Zina was telling me that, since I had such a wonderful voice, I really must go and study at the Conservatoire – and Tolya suddenly came out with, ‘Yes, I knew it! The stage! How utterly, utterly wonderful!’

Immediately after this little outburst, needless to say, he seemed terribly embarrassed again.

He was only in Petersburg for a few days. Soon after he had left, I received a huge bouquet of roses from Eilers.
²
We were all racking our brains for a long time, wondering who on earth could have sent it, and it was only the following day, as I was changing the water in the vase, that I noticed a little cornelian dog, tied to the bouquet by a thin gold thread.

I didn’t tell anyone the flowers were from Tolya. I somehow started to feel awfully sorry for him. I even started to feel sorry for the dog. It had little shiny eyes, as if it were crying.

And how could someone as poor as Tolya have found the money for such an expensive bouquet? It was probably money his family had given him to go to the theatre with, or to buy things he really needed.

Expensive and splendid as they were, there was something tender and painful about these flowers. It was impossible to reconcile their air of sorrow with the impression created by Tolya’s round, childishly naïve face. I even felt glad when the flowers withered and my aunt threw them out. I somehow hadn’t dared to throw them out myself. As for the little cornelian dog, I tucked it away in a drawer, to try and forget about it. And I forgot about it.

Then came a very chaotic period in my life. It started with the Conservatoire, which disappointed me deeply. My professor was full of praise for my voice, but he said I needed to work on
it. This, however, wasn’t my way of doing things at all. I was used to doing nothing very much and receiving ecstatic praise for it. I would squeak out some little song and everyone would say, ‘Oh! Ah! Such talent!’ As for systematic study, that was something entirely beyond me. It also turned out that the generally held belief in my great talent was somewhat exaggerated. In the Conservatoire I did not stand out in any way from the other girls. Or if I did, it was only because I didn’t even once bother to prepare properly for a lesson. This disappointment did, of course, have its effect on me. I became anxious and irritable. I found solace in flirtations, in pointless chatter and in endlessly rushing about. I was in a bad way.

I heard only once from Tolya. He sent me a letter from Moscow, where he had gone to continue his studies.

‘Lyalechka,’ he wrote, ‘remember that you have a dog. If ever you are in need, just summon it.’

He did not include his address, and I did not reply.

The war began.

The boys from my old circle all turned out to be patriots, and they all went off to the Front. I heard that Tolya went too, but somehow I hardly thought about him. Zina joined the Sisters of Mercy, but I was still caught up in my mad whirl.

My studies at the Conservatoire were going from bad to worse. And I’d fallen in with a wild, Bohemian crowd. Aspiring poets, unrecognized artists, long evenings devoted to discussing matters erotic, nights at the ‘Stray Dog’.
³

The ‘Stray Dog’ was an astonishing institution. It drew in people from worlds that were entirely alien to it. It drew these people in and swallowed them up.

I shall never forget one regular visitor. The daughter of a well-known journalist, she was a married woman and the mother of two children.

Someone once happened to take her to this cellar, and one could say that she simply never left. A beautiful young woman, her huge black eyes wide open as if from horror, she would come every evening and remain until morning, breathing the alcoholic fumes, listening to the young poets howling out verses of which she probably understood not a word. She was always
silent; she looked frightened. People said that her husband had left her and taken the children with him.

Once I saw a young man with her. He looked rather sickly. His dress, and his general air, were very sophisticated, ‘Wildean’.

Looking cool and indifferent, he was sitting beside her at a table, and he seemed to be either writing or sketching something on a scrap of paper just under her nose. These words or signs evidently agitated her. She kept blushing and looking around: had anyone seen anything? She would grab the pencil from the young man and quickly cross out what he had written. Then she would wait tensely while he lazily scribbled something else. And then she would get agitated again and snatch back the pencil.

Something about this degenerate young man was so horrible, so deeply disturbing that I said to myself, ‘Can there, anywhere in the world, be a woman so idiotic as to allow that creature to come anywhere near her? A woman who would trust that man in any way, let alone be attracted to such a repulsive little reptile?’

In less than a fortnight I proved to be just such a woman myself.

I would prefer not to dwell on this disgusting chapter of my life.

Harry Edvers was a ‘poet and composer’. He composed little songs, which he half-read, half-sang, always to the same tune.

His real first name and patronymic were Grigory Nikolayevich. I never discovered his surname. I remember I once had a visit from the police (this was later, under the Bolshevik regime) to ask if a certain Grigory Ushkin was hiding in my apartment. But I don’t know for sure if it was him they were inquiring about.

This Harry entered my life as simply and straightforwardly as if he were just entering his room in a hotel, opening it with his own key.

Needless to say, it was in the ‘Stray Dog’ that we first became acquainted.

I was on stage part of that evening, and I sang Kuzmin’s little song, ‘Child, don’t reach out in spring for the rose’.
⁴
At the
time it was still very much in vogue. At the end of the first phrase someone in the audience sang out, ‘Rose lives in Odessa.’

It had been someone sitting at the same table as Harry. As I was on my way back to my seat, Harry got to his feet and followed me. ‘Please don’t take offence,’ he said. ‘That was Yurochka – he was just playing the fool. But you really shouldn’t be singing Kuzmin. You should have been singing my ‘
Duchesse
’.

And so it began.

Within two weeks I had had my hair cropped and dyed auburn, and I was wearing a black velvet gentleman’s suit. A cigarette between my fingers, I was singing the drivel Harry had made up:

A pale boy composed of papier-mâché

Was now the favourite of the blue princess.

He had a certain
je-ne-sais-quel cachet

Betokening voluptuous excess.

I would raise my eyebrows, shake the ash from my cigarette and go on:

The princess had the bluest, sweetest soul,

A dainty, pear-like soul – a true
Duchesse –

A soul to savour, then to save and seal,

A soul for lovers of
vraie délicatesse.

And so on, and so on.

Harry listened, gave his approval, made corrections.

‘You must have a rose in your buttonhole – some quite extraordinary, unnatural rose. A green rose. Huge and hideous.’
⁵

Harry had his retinue of followers, an entire court of his own. All of them green, unnatural and hideous. There was a green-faced slip of a girl, a cocaine addict. There was some Yurochka or other, ‘whom everybody knew’. There was a consumptive schoolboy and a hunchback who played quite wonderfully on the piano. They all shared strange secrets that bound them together. They were all agitated about something
or other, all suffering some kind of torment and, as I now realize, often just making mountains out of molehills.