Pushkin Hills / Заповедник. Книга для чтения на английском языке. Сергей Довлатов

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listening to the Pushkin Hills tourist-centre broadcasting station. Here is today’s schedule of activities…”

      I walked into the main office. Galina was beset by tourists. She motioned me to wait.

      I picked up the brochure Pearl of the Crimea from the shelf and took out my cigarettes.

      After collecting some paperwork, the tour guides would leave. The tourists ran after them to the buses. Several “stray” families wanted to join a group. They were being looked after by a tall, slender girl.

      A man in a Tyrolean hat[25] approached me timidly.

      “My apologies, may I ask you a question?”

      “Go ahead.”

      “Is that the expanse?”

      “What do you mean?”

      “I am asking you, is that the expanse?” The Tyrolean dragged me to an open window.

      “In what sense?”

      “In the most obvious. I would like to know whether that is the expanse or not? If it isn’t the expanse, just say so.”

      “I don’t understand.”

      The man turned slightly red and began to explain, hurriedly:

      “I had a postcard… I am a cartophilist…”

      “Who?”

      “A cartophilist. I collect postcards. Philos – love, cartos…”

      “OK, got it.”

      “I own a colour postcard titled The Pskov Expanse. And now that I’m here I want to know – is that the expanse?”

      “I don’t see why not,” I said.

      “Typical Pskovian?”

      “You bet[26].”

      The man walked away, beaming.

      The rush hour was over and the centre emptied.

      “Each summer there’s a larger influx of tourists,” explained Galina.

      And then, raising her voice slightly: “The prophecy came true: ‘The sacred path will not be overgrown…’[27]!”

      No, I think not. How could it get overgrown, the poor thing, being trampled by squadrons of tourists?.

      “Mornings here are a total clusterfuck,” said Galina.

      And once again I was surprised by the unexpected turn of her language.

      Galina introduced me to the office instructor, Lyudmila. I would secretly admire her smooth legs till the end of the season. Luda had an even and friendly temperament. This was explained by the existence of a fiancé. She hadn’t been marred by a constant readiness to make an angry rebuff. For now her fiancé was in jail…

      Shortly after, an unattractive woman of about thirty appeared: the methodologist. Her name was Marianna Petrovna. Marianna had a neglected face without defects and an imperceptibly bad figure.

      I explained my reason for being there. With a sceptical smile, she invited me to follow her to the office.

      “Do you love Pushkin?”

      I felt a muffled irritation.

      “I do.”

      At this rate[28], I thought, it won’t be long before I don’t.

      “And may I ask you why?”

      I caught her ironic glance. Evidently the love of Pushkin was the most widely circulated currency in these parts. What if I were a counterfeiter, God forbid?

      “What do you mean?” I asked.

      “Why do you love Pushkin?”

      “Let’s stop this idiotic test,” I burst out. “I graduated from school. And from university.” (Here I exaggerated a bit; I was expelled in my third year.) “I’ve read a few books. In short, I have a basic understanding… Besides, I’m only seeking a job as a tour guide…”

      Luckily, my snap response went unnoticed. As I later learnt, basic rudeness was easier to get away with[29] here than feigned aplomb.

      “And nevertheless?” Marianna waited for an answer. What’s more, she waited for a specific answer she had been expecting.

      “OK,” I said, “I’ll give it a try. Here we go. Pushkin is our belated Renaissance[30]. Like Goethe was for Weimar[31]. They took upon themselves what the West had mastered in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Pushkin found a way to express social themes in the form of tragedy, a characteristic of the Renaissance. He and Goethe lived, if you will, in several eras. Werther is a tribute to sentimentalism. Prisoner of the Caucasus is a typically Byronesque work. But Faust, for instance – that’s already Elizabethan and the Little Tragedies naturally continue one of the Renaissance genres. The same with Pushkin’s lyricism. And if it’s dark, then it isn’t dark in the spirit of

      Byron[32] but more in the spirit of Shakespeare’s sonnets, I feel. Am I explaining myself clearly?”

      “What has Goethe got to do with anything?” asked Marianna. “And the same goes for the Renaissance!”

      “Nothing!” I finally exploded. “Goethe has absolutely nothing to do with this! And ‘Renaissance’ was the name of Don Quixote’s horse[33]. And it too has nothing to do with this! And evidently I have nothing to do with this either!”

      “Please calm down,” whispered Marianna. “You’re a bundle of nerves… I only asked, ‘Why do you love Pushkin?’”

      “To love publicly is obscene!” I yelled. “There is a special term for it in sexual pathology!”

      With a shaking hand she extended me a glass of water. I pushed it away.

      “Have you loved anyone? Ever?!”

      I shouldn’t have said it. Now she’ll break down and start screaming: “I am thirty-four years old and I am single!”

      “Pushkin is our pride and joy!” managed Marianna. “He is not only a great poet, he is also Russia’s great citizen…”

      Apparently this was the prepared answer to her idiotic question.

      And that’s it? I thought.

      “Do look at the guidelines. Also, here is a list of books. They are available in the reading room. And report to Galina Alexandrovna that the interview went well.”

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