7 Zo_XKllllllmmmm m.mm<n xmHTn nn*ngl Granny, Auntie, Uncle I know Grannys herstory! In a delicate, cretonne armchair, in wiped worn spots of the worn out seat, Granny droops in her bay roan, bigeared cap and chews the fat of her daily fare: carrots had become more expensive, they were selling frozen slop; she coughs up the word: Carrots! Frozen slop! I touch a bunch I brought it home, and what astench! And in vexation she tugs with her hand at the tatters of her yellow-flannelette Chinese-jacket; and calmly chomping her lips, she again tries to make a marriage with the satin suit of the cards: the marriages do not work out: Shes an old maid! And shell be left that way. Here she fixes her punynosed gaze on some junk. They lead me in,and she puts a hank on my hands: You ought to, little one, hold your hands like this! And the rough hank winds; grannys herstory quickly swells up; I amsimply a hank; Im bitten from behind; the couch isa fleabag; downyplumed Granny twists a gray hair out of her nostrils; and fluffy cotton tufts from her right ear; she casts a slanty bloodshot glance, speaking in a bass voice, just like a billygoat; a blackroach smacks against the floor; and the clock is in full swing with a weighty hiss; and everything smells of death, under me a spring pokes about. Everything will cool off in the frozen slop: it is freezing! Granny sits here all week; resurrected on Sunday she goes to Mass in such an old fashioned manteau and in a wrinkled hat, with marmots (people no longer wear such hats); she turns about: she cools off in the frozen slop, gets aches in her bones and meets monthly with Marya Herodovna, with a fever. On the window sill stands a punypalmated little flower, long ago molded; beyond the little windowwetslush; freedances of snowflakesflash, flicker; there comesa yawn: I yawn apart my little mouth. Here isAuntiefrom her job: ribless, punybrowed Auntiewith a troubling thought: The marriagesdidnt work out! And youll be left that way! Auntie sits by the window, tinyshouldered, a little stick; on her blankface a fluttering of eyelashes stands blankly; she isin self-spiritedness; silently she secretes her unenlightenedness; you ask her somethingshe marvels; andher cheeks puffs up; she fixes her gaze on blankflights of dust specks, on the soot of the ceiling, she is chained to a spot out of the dusk by the paleness of her eyeless little face; her tiny little nose sniffs very thoughtlessly, it draws into itself the smell of kasha, she moves her big chin andis attracted to under the ceiling by the blackness of the thinning lines; she isblankeyed; her dark brown little eyes are only for looks; they are like two outside stick-ons; a moth flying by with a flutter sits on her little brow, marked by little curls; it makes its point herewith a shake of her little head: Liza has a new Canton crepe for a dress. So what! You dont say: for the tarlatan tablecloth there at the Letaevs I should go to the Letaevs! And Granny in a temper tears off a tatterdemalion from her jacket; but Auntie out of malice to herbegins to walk back and forth under her nose and glimpses her goodlooking self in the mirror, she tries to look younger and begins to sing: La-la Little wind La-la! Can barely breathe! La-la.. Little wind...La-la!.. It doesnt heave! Granny to her wet-lipped: Hey, you, spinner: youll probably callosify even the mirror with your dear personal persona! Auntie answers her to this: Iwant to live! She reproaches Auntie: You area proud girl! She chases suitors away from herself; butshe wants to live; here is Pyotr Savvich: a suitors suitor; both a widower, and a simple fellow; after all he tried: he forced, forced, forced himself; and received only chuckles: You pay attention,chirps a laughing Mamochka, a slim and shapely convolvula,pay attention: Dotya! Everyone has on their desk someones portrait somea suitor, somean admirer, and some, someand having caught herself in the mirror, she chains herself to the spot and looks at her own personal curve of her figure, so all over, whitenecked, satiny, in a kaolin necklace, and she tries the golden galloon of her hair comb (wont it fall out?) Some have Some have Yes, what was I saying: she has, Dotya has, her own personal portrait of Dotya on the desk: ha-ha-ha! At this Papa opines: Yes, you know: no matter who comes closehe gets a chuckle!.. Mama isa slim and shapely convolvula, of medium height, pulled in by a strong corset and puffed up from below by a bustle, in her heliotropic skirt, in a Basque shirt of shiny satins (I loved that massicot color), on which little berries of pale blue kaolin gambol and jump,she curls like an eel, when she is gay; Auntie Dotya, like a browless, very tall little stick walks behind her: breastless, flat; Mama touches hereverything is like a little board there: Yourenot wearing a corset? Her little eyes look quickly, and the two dimples of her cheek look cunningly: Well, what about Pyotr Savvich? And Auntie Dotya fastidiously covers her covered breast with her arm: Ah, leave me alone! Mamochka pushes the tear pendants into her earlobes: and faceted sparkling begins to drip like rain from the blue luminary with greenish senses turning into red passions; but Auntiedoes not drip; Mamochka fades like a sparkling little star and rocks like a dewy branch; Auntie is stretched out in a sorrowful resolution: to try to overcome her job at the telegraph office! . . . . . She comes like a sour apple; and she beats on you with a bitter taste; and she begins to affirm over and over for Henrietta Martynovna facts about our apartment known to all the house: Yesterday you had suckling pig Liza has a new cream dress, a prune dress. Liza is going to the ball. Henrietta Martynovna, the German, with a very pretty little face, white, like chalk, with a white-yellow braid, eyelidless, pale-lipless, inexpressively she puts out her miniblooded gums: Prune, cream Yes, yes Gewiss! Selbstverstndig And you forgot the massicot Here Auntie looks at the German from the blankflights of her winks: NoI did not forget:but massicotis barely comme-il-faut And both turn their little noses irresponsibly to the mirror, in order to glance at their profiles. Auntie speaks exclusively about Mama,in words belonging to Mama and addressed to Mama, informing Mama, tiring from the tedium, about things which Mama had already lived through. You have a cream dress! I didnt forget the massicot You had suckling pig at the table Mama to her: Well what of it? And she begins to sing: La-la-la Little wind La-la Can barely breathe La-la It doesnt heave And Auntie seconds her: La-lya It doesnt heave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I remember: it whitens, it pales; and grays palely; and darkens grayly; it ashens: pewter grays deceive you with a wink, and Mamochka, pushing her bust out of the satin, raising the splendor of her breasts, bustles her wraparound skirt with the Canton crepe lining a twi- ster, a turner! she sits down in front of Auntie, and her splendid bustle bends immediately to the side; I seeshe is not in good spirits: Auntie Dotya is going to catch it: Yes, our Mikhail Vasilevich isa rare one, yes-yes amazing; he isa benefactor! And Auntie isspeechless, sensing an ambush: What do you mean? Auntie Dotya begins to draw on the outside of her palewhitish face, like with charcoal on white paper, a lightly wiped thin coating of flying dust,her expressions: Yes, yes, our Mikhail Vasilevich, isa rare one, yes-yes: amazing. Mama replies to thiswith ridicule, with a flutter, with a persistent spinningabout: A luminous personality! And Auntie winks, blankfaced into the glasspanes: and Auntie yes-yesses: A luminous personality! In the little window start up windwaves: and Mamaused to say: Yousay the very same thing I say: our Mikhail Vasilevich issuch a phenomenon, that Mama tenses her lips, she twitches maliciously her nostrils in vexation at Auntie; here she became before the mirrora spin And Auntie crawls with her eyes into the windows: Yes, I say the very same thing: there is such a phenomenon, thatand beyond the glasspanesthere, where the mist, a pewter overhang, fell with a flutter of snowflakes, welded into little drops,a sprinkle-rain began to fall: a blinking! Already from the gutter-drainpipes the melted snow tumbles down: This isa force! And Auntie tries to grain out an opinion: I say the very same thing: a force! And you are obligated to it! Auntie jerks her little brow in tiny curls: Obligated! Thanks to himyou exist! We exist! At this point Mama can no longer hold herself in: and correcting the very slim fringe of her bodice, she flashes: You really are a jerker: you jerk outother peoples words! And Auntie tries: And you have a prune dress, a cream dress I always say something: then you always say something Mama presses her chin bitingly: But it is Iwho says it: but what do you say? You mince, you mince my words, the very same ones, like a mincer!.. But Auntie minces with dignity (a proud girl!) These are my words: I always say the very same thing And I cannot say anything elsebut that which I have in my head You say only, what you hear!.. Aunties eyes are wet-ones: No, I say what I hear: and I always affirm that your husband is an amazing, moral person; and you are obligated to him for everything! What do you mean by that? Yes, yes: obligated for everything; without him you couldnt sew yourself anything! Mama passes her little eyes over Auntie and shouts at the atomizer; and she grabs it by the little sphere and throws it away: Ai, ai! What rubbish you speak, you piece of rubbish! You come here, wag about, just like a fox, and then you talk this crap! First put your own life in order, and then go Youve been sitting tight until youve become an old maid!.. Pyotr Savvichyes, yes: is no fool! Andhipless Auntiegoes home: to sniff the smells of kasha! And it pales whitely; and grays palely; and dar- kens grayly; and the darkness ashens; beyond the windowsthe cornices of the houses grow weaker into barely visible traces of fleeting weakening lines wiped from a blackboard, like lightly drawn chalk; here faded Granny in the worn-out seat of the old armchair again picks at her kerchief with two boney hooks in the graying pattern of the wallpaper; and a violent vein completely swells her ailing hand; already the glass lamp hangs sternly in murkiness; Granny complicates her work; the fire of her cigarette, like the eye of a jaguaradmonishes: Well, why did you return so early: whats up at the Letaevs? Andinto the cigarette with her teeth; and the bright-red eye describes for us in a fiery reflection of light a malicious face of nothing and then ittakes covers: Auntie boohoos: And Im, here: so unfortunate. The eye of the jaguar opens. Well, youve tooted your own horn; you raise dust and stir things up over an unfortunate life the dark corner under Granny resounds in a bass voice; from Granny; and from the other corner from under Auntie gives out: Yes, you have it good: youve lived out your life, one can say, on what constituted our fortunes Iwant to live!.. And objects fly into the lifelessness, into the fathomless: they become the deception of the night at nights the holeless walls stand; at nights the eyeless people come; I look: Auntie Dotya is without eyes: only two eye sockets blacken strangely in the dusk: I fear, that in the nightly gloom eyes will exchange people: how is one to know who grows kinder in the light from his eyes: with inconsolable malice it looks out from the gloom; here isGranny: one can say, she lived out what constituted the fortune of Mama and Auntie; just so: Auntie Dotyaused to go to her little bed when she was small; today she wants to livewithout a man: and she puts on her little desk her own personal portrait of Dotya! The crooked lamp with its kerosine flame barely glimmers . . . . . . . . . . . . . I remember we are with Granny, and with Auntie at Grannys; Granny is looking at herself maliciously with the red-lead of her little eyes; and Auntie, having put on a durable dress, gazes inimically; and then skinny Uncle Vasya comes home from his job. He isa bumbler-mumbler, light chestnut colored, bisideburned cougher, he uncovers in a buttercup of freckles his yellowtoothed mouth; he shows his Adams apple, tufts up his sideburns; one eyeon Auntie; one eyeon Granny. Heh-heh: Mamasha! And Auntieat Granny: they both already know that they know. Mamasha! Mamasha it is (something their own is imaged by the word Mamasha), cockplumed Granny struts all about: she evileyesAuntie, Uncle. And Unclepasses through! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Uncle Vasya has: a cockade, a hearty job, a medal; hehad been recommended for a medal; buthe cackles; andcoughs a cock-a-doo-dle-doo; for five years he has been beating on the doorstep of the Revenue Department. Andwith what? Its simpleif done with a piece of felt, but not so simpleif done with a stone; he hunches down over a soiled little desk with one foot in the gravewith a very legible handwriting: How can this be? One foot in the grave? I think about this one foot in the grave: I pity Uncle Vasya; hebellows: he bends over,surely his head will fall on the parquet, and he will sweep with his sideburns; and maybe this bending with one foot in the grave is worse bending down he sticks his head between his legs: with his teeth he drags his own handkerchiefsout of his coattail! And ah his little room: is cold! Granny beats felt around the door in the winters, in order to protect her feet from the frost. AndI simply cant stand it! In Vasilys room Granny pronounces this in Vasilys room with such deep malice, as though in Vasilys room someone is guilty: the guilty one is Vasily! In Vasilys roomthere is a fierce frost! Yes it is impossible to say, thatVasily I knowwhat is impossible to say: it is impossible to saywhat? Vasily should? And whatshould Vasily? ButI know: Vasily. A comrade, Letkov, calls him a poor soul. Vasily is blamed by Granny for everything there is: that there is a draft under her feet, that there is a tart scent from the kasha and the glue, that a rotted leaf of appliqu has been granulated by the flies, that there is a lot of crooked cardboard covered with a press; that a belch rises in Uncles catarrhal composition. Here, returning from one foot in the grave, Uncle sits down: to exercise himself in the bookbinders art: and he bellows, bellows to himself under the nose. Yes, yes! A trade! A thingthats useful! This is allPapochka: their provider! Both tailor, andgardener of impulses; the family is grateful to him for the fact that it is given his counsel, kindness, money and produce. Here issome woolen material: for Dotya for a dress; it cant beworn out; it is better than last years. AndI know: this years material is alwaysunwearoutable and better than last years material; I think: if such gifts continue year in and year out,then, surely, in about twenty years they will have to bestow on Auntie Dotya a gift of brocade, because the other materials, (those, which are worse) will for sure have all been given to her. Dont thank me: this isMikhail Vasilevich! Papa is giver, keeper, healer; andeternal counsellor; he recommends that Uncle turn his tedious leisure time into a trade. Yes, yes, a trade isa useful thing You see: it distracts from obtrusive thoughts! If you happen to want to,you, Vasily Yegorych, take it up You can bind the Mathematical Bulletin for my library Youllget paid, and Illget some use from it: I can give you about eighteen years for binding. Uncle forces himself to become a bookbinder, buthe is so devil-may-care. So: after occupying himself with a little bowl of kasha he sits with a loud hic; he tries to insert something into the printed skin,it will not go. Its freezing! Brr-brr! And he goes to warm himself about the rooms. Then he thinks, thathe is being caressed; and he caresses himself in the mirror; he puts aside his foot and straightens his sideburns. And why aint I a brain? He stands like a winker; and his Adams apple is like a race horse; it spins about like a dandy; and he clicks one black boot against the other boot. Look at you: just look at you! Andhe slaps his heels in front of Granny: Grannylike a billygoat at him. Well, what do you want? Carrots, I dare say, are very dear! What are you fumbling with? I bought some cabbage, cooked it, cooked it: frozen slop! The stench! Uncle Vasya, remembering himself, quacks: Its freezing! Brr-brr! And off to his room: to visit the Snorers And soon he sends a penetrating snore from the frozen little wall, from the threelegged bed, a bellyless, birdbrained mosquito, broken in two with one sideburn pressed to the pillow, the mouth opened wide and yellowing in freckles; such a malcunning worker! The little cloth blanket is gray; and on a gray field sing cocks, wiped worn by much lying; on a naila hat with a cockade; anda violin; a meower sits under a geranium; the wallpaper is of the same color; darkenedspots of dampness; where the corner is swept by the frost,snowflakes come off coldly with fingers. There he lives: what a Mister Lay-me-down! From here he goes to dineat our place, on the holiday; he stagnates; during debates in his headthere is a brainbreaker; he sitslike a brainshaker; he rolls up all his slices; he eats, he laughs pillared to the ground; andhe bats his eyelashes; infrequently he tries to boom out his thoughts; andsweatbrowed from the force of these efforts, he cannot use his brain at all. Yes, yes! A trade! A useful thing! Thing! Trade. Andagain he falls wordless. Auntie comes with him. Well, how are things at your place Ah, Mamasha! She sits propping up with a propped-up arm (the other one)her little head; she winks in such a condition: like a little stick, her breast is like a little stick; so riblessly she stands, riblessly she passes over to the window. The telegraph! Im fed up with it! . . . . . . . . Uncle Vasyas ragged life isin halves; I recognize one half: Uncle Vasya is wifeless, wenchless, and as they sayis not a brain, but he has twenty-twenty hindsight, his brains are in his behind, but all the same with dignity, he sits modestly, curling a sideburn with his hand, wrapped in a white napkin, and widening his eyes in conversation, and with the other hand he rolls teeny-weeny bread balls of dough; and Papa leans over to him with an opinion, with his agitation: Im telling you: you, Vasily Yegorovichhe sticks his beard into the starch: You, Ill tell you straight out You ought to leave this! And with this opens another, ones own half of the burst-apart life of Uncle: where Uncle, such a Mister Quiet, faded, chomping teeny-weeny bread balls into dough and trusting any words appears before usas another person: eating Granny out of house and home, quite a screaming cockler, who raises his voice at everyone: You are all good: waterhogs! He barks loudly, having sloshed down his rowanberry vodka; a silly womanizer, hobbling along the floor, he grunts to himself under the nose, carries on like in a tavern: Hey, you, waterhogs! And he starts to dance to slap his heels like a spinning top propped up: My name is Vaska Pazukhov Ill quaff my rum and be right off! Yes and he womanizes indecently and grins all over and shows his lalaks (these, I know, are his eyelids: that is what Granny calls them), he cackles-gackles, begins coughing, lets out a word on the fly; anddisappears for about three days; and Granny says: Im telling you, he will wench himself to no good! Once she appeared; and began to blare, to bray, andthere rose such a blast over the matter. What do you mean? Again? Granny bristled. No matter what you sayhe is a scandal monger, this Vasily Yegorovich of yours! And shielding herself with her hands from the nose which our Papa was trying to drive into her face between the palms, she announced: Intoxication; I thought: this is for sure an upset stomach, with a big scandal: he needs chicken soup; from Grannys words was revealed to me: He isa bouser! And what is a bouser? Youll find it in Dahls dictionary, but in your headtake a look!Again: understanding, a little girl in a white little dress, dances; and dark nannies come in a muttering swarm: so horribly indistinct, yetso terribly occupying! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . And Mama plays: taken off, borne off; the events of life fluttered in the beinglessness of sounds; again there came during the years someone tall; thatsUncle; he stood up on the skinny stilts: on his legs; he is withdrawing from usforever along the whitening roofs: he is withdrawing to the heavens; and he starts to bang out to us from the heavens:Yes I am tired of bending 'one foot in the grave: its enough! I am tired of beating the doorstep of the Revenue Department! Here isthe felt, here arethe stones: let others beat it. I am tired of trades: a trade is not a useful thing!.. I am withdrawing from you! . . . . Uncle, Uncledear: and I Mama strums her little hand along the keys; and agitation arises in the sounds; she became so tiny, so dear; she sticks out her neck; andas if growing timid, she passes among the soundson tiptoes: like a little girl; andshe bows with her congenital birthmark; she translates the sounds so expressively with her eyes which jump up from the bot-tom of the page: to the little hook, to the note: and I withdraw into this life; and as it is not bad, this life; his little room! Cold: Granny beats felt around the door, in order to protect her feet and . . . . Ah! Temporary is the time,but burdensome is time; it mumbles by in days given up; and itgives outinto our ears,into our souls!  The Christened Chinaman Granny, Auntie, Uncle  vx lop! The stench! Uncle Vasya, remembering himself, quacks: Its freezing! Brr-brr! And off to his room: to visit the Snorers And soon he sends a penetrating snore from the frozen little wall, from the threelegged bed, a bellyless, birdbrained mosquito, broken in two with one sideburn pressed to the pillow, the mouth opened wide and yellowing in freckles; such a malcunning worker! 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