nights of Russian provincial towns at the end of summer. What peace, what well-being! An old man wanders through the cheerful nocturnal town with a watchman’s rattle, but solely for his own pleasure: there’s no need to keep watch, sleep peacefully, good people; you are watched over by God’s goodwill, by this lofty, radiant sky, at which the old man casts the odd carefree glance as he wanders down the roadway, heated up in the course of the day, just occasionally, for fun, letting go a dancing shake of the rattle. And it was on such a night, at that late hour when just he alone in the town was not asleep, you were waiting for me in your family’s garden, already a little dried up towards autumn, and I slipped into it by stealth[62]: I quietly opened the gate, unlocked in advance by you, quietly and quickly ran through the yard and, behind the shed in the depths of the yard, entered the dappled twilight of the garden where, in the distance, on the bench under the apple trees, the whiteness of your dress was faintly visible, and approaching quickly, with joyous fright, I met the lustre of your waiting eyes.
And we sat, sat in a sort of bewilderment of happiness. With one hand I embraced you, sensing the beating of your heart, in the other I held your hand, feeling through it the whole of you. And it was already so late that even the rattle was not to be heard – the old man had laid down on a bench somewhere and dozed off with his pipe in his teeth, warming himself in the light of the moon. When I looked to the right, I could see the moon shining high and sinless above the yard, and the roof of the house gleaming with piscine lustre. When I looked to the left, I saw a path, overgrown with dry grasses, disappearing under more apple trees, and beyond them, peeping out low from behind some other garden, a solitary green star, glimmering impassively, and at the same time expectantly, and soundlessly saying something. But both the yard and the star I saw only in glimpses – there was one thing in the world: the delicate twilight and the radiant twinkling in the twilight of your eyes.
And then you accompanied me as far as the gate, and I said:
“If there is a future life and we meet in it, I shall kneel down there and kiss your feet for all that you gave me on earth.”
I went out into the middle of the bright street and set off for my town-house lodgings. Turning back, I saw there was still whiteness in the gateway.
Now, rising from the bollard, I set off back by the same route by which I had come. No, I had, apart from Staraya Street, another objective too, one which I was afraid to acknowledge to myself, but the fulfilment of which was, I knew, unavoidable. And I set off – to take a look and leave, this time for ever.
The road was again familiar. Always straight ahead, then to the left, through the market, and from the market – along Monastyrskaya – towards the exit from town.
The market is like another town within the town. Very strong-smelling rows of stalls. In the refreshments row, under awnings above long tables and benches, it is gloomy. In the hardware row[63], on a chain over the middle of the passage hangs an icon of a big-eyed Saviour in a rusty setting. In the flour row in the mornings there was always a whole flock of pigeons running about and pecking along the roadway. You’re on your way to school – what a lot of them! And all fat, with iridescent craws – they peck and run, waggling their tails in a feminine way, swinging from side to side, twitching their heads monotonously, not seeming to notice you: they fly up, their wings whistling, only when you almost step on one of them. And here in the night-time large, dark rats, foul and ugly, rushed around quickly, preoccupied.
Monastyrskaya Street juts out into the fields, and is then a road: for some, out of town towards home, to the village, for others – to the town of the dead. In Paris, house number such-and-such in such-and-such a street is marked out from all other houses for two days by the pestilential stage properties of the porch, of its coal-black and silver frame, for two days a sheet of paper in a coal-black border lies in the porch on the coal-black shroud of a little table – polite visitors sign their names on it as a mark of sympathy; then, at a certain final time, by the porch stops a huge chariot with a coal-black canopy, the wood of which is black, resinous, like a plague coffin, the rounded cut-outs of the skirts of the canopy bear witness to the heavens with large white stars, while the corners of the top are crowned with curly, coal-black plumes – the feathers of an ostrich from the underworld; harnessed to the chariot are strapping monsters in coal-black horned horse cloths with white-ringed eye sockets; on the interminably high coach box sits an old drunkard waiting for the bearing-out, symbolically dressed up too in a theatrical burial uniform and a similar three-cornered hat, probably forever smirking inwardly at those solemn words: “Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis[64].” Here everything is different. A breeze blows down Monastyrskaya from the fields, and the open coffin is carried into it on towels, while the rice-coloured face with a vivid ribbon on the forehead above the closed, bulging eyes rocks from side to side. She too was carried thus.
At the exit, to the left of the highway, is a monastery from the times of Alexei Mikhailovich[65], fortress gates, always closed, and fortress walls, from behind which gleam the gilded turnips of the cathedral. Further on, quite out in the fields, is a very extensive square of more walls, but low ones: confined within them is an entire grove of trees broken up by long, intersecting prospects, down the sides of which, beneath old elms, limes and birches[66], all is sown with diverse crosses and memorials. Here the gates were open wide, and I saw the main prospect, regular, endless. I tentatively took off my hat and entered. How late and how mute! The moon was already low behind the trees, but all around was still clearly visible as far as the eye could see. The entire expanse of this grove of dead men, its crosses and memorials, was decorated with dappled patterns in the transparent shade. The wind had died down towards the hour before dawn – the light and dark patches that made everything under the trees dappled were sleeping. In a distant part of the grove, from behind the graveyard church, there was a sudden glimpse of something, and it rushed at me in a dark ball at a furious pace – beside myself, I staggered aside, my entire head immediately turned to ice and tightened up, my heart gave a leap and froze. What was it? It rushed by and disappeared. But still my heart remained standing still in my breast. And thus, with my heart stopped, carrying it within me like a burdensome chalice, I moved on. I knew where I had to go, I kept walking straight ahead down the prospect – and at its very end, just a few paces from the rear wall, I stopped: before me, in a level spot, among dry grasses, there lay in solitude an elongated and quite narrow stone, its head towards the wall. And from behind the wall, like a wondrous gem, gazed a low, green star, radiant, like that previous one, but mute and motionless.
Part Two
Rusya
After ten o’clock in the evening, the Moscow-Sebastopol fast train stopped at a small station beyond Podolsk where it was not due to make a stop, waiting for something on the second track. On the train, a gentleman and a lady went up to a lowered window of the first-class carriage. A conductor with a red lamp in his dangling hand was crossing the rails, and the lady asked:
“Listen. Why are we standing still?”
The conductor replied that the oncoming express train was late.
The station was dark and sad. Twilight had fallen long before, but in the west, behind the station, beyond the blackening, wooded fields, the long summer Moscow sunset still gave off a deathly glow. Through the window came the damp smell of marshland. Audible from somewhere in the silence was the steady – and as though damp too – screeching of a corncrake.
He leant on the window, she on his shoulder.
“I stayed in this area during the holidays once,” he said. “I was a tutor on a dacha estate about five kilometres from here. It’s
by stealth – тайком
refreshments row… herdwear row – Обжорный ряд
Requiem aeternam… luceat eis: From the Requiem Mass: “Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them” (Latin).
Alexei Mikhailovich: Born in 1629, the second Romanov Tsar ruled Russia from 1645 until his death in 1676.
elms, limes and birches – вязы, липы и березы
