7XhkWm:fofofofofof}gggg+ g5"gWgW<gxgh h+hA*hkfo Mikhails November, a snowgift, chasing out the sleighs, beset the days with woundaround flakes; Papa hangs in the anteroom an enormous torn fur coat (they had already sewn the hem in it several times, it tears; for sure, he rubs it in the gutter while walking) he hangs in the anteroom a coonskin coat, coughing loudly and shaking off the snow; he stands in his own very high cap of the softest sealskin, with a yellow bastmat bag and a portfolio; in the portfoliothe action files of the department, in the baggoldheaded wines: twelve bottlesMadeiras, port wines and sherries; these are the eves of Saint Mikhails day; tomorrow the congratulators will come running: the Mikhailswill be left at home. The floorpolishers areat our place: they put aside the furniture, the beds, the tables; andthey complicated the carpets; one crawled about the rooms, standing on his knees; with one hand compressing the wax, he scratched, sullenly perspiring, whitish, wax zig-zags, (he showed a dirty heel), which Almochka, sticking out her puss, tried to bite and squealed out as if the floorpolisher had kicked her with the heel. Afrosinya arrived with a white wicker basket; she hada motley-plumed wildfowl: a headless bird; I seea bloody neck and yellow paw; and I know, that tomorrow for dinner all of this will be served differently at the table. Mama sternly buries her little nose in the motley-plumed hazelhen: she sniffs: No. No,nono! I wont take it: not for anything. Oh, I wish tomorrow would come sooner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . And here it is tomorrow. Oh, how many rosy, ruddy noses glow ruddy in the ruddy frost. How many rosy ruddy dragon flies set down; to sparkle in the cold; and beyond the window they sprinkle sand, so one wont fall; no, its not November, butDecember: and in the Nativity snow, and in the sparkling cold feet will scrape on the street; smokes will sniff out; shovels strikingly scrape their hard iron against the frozen ices. And the sound of a bell, very resoundingly: they bring in a carton; from impatience my heart isall agog; and Mamas eyes arelike a wheel; Mamas little mouth opens like a flower: there the little tongue isa little worm; and shelicks herself, like a kitten, from satisfaction: Tolstopyatov had sent a torte; and they bring the carton straight to Papa; very curiously he fixed his gaze out of his dressing gown on the torte, correcting the tassels on his belly: Say it, please Mama bows, extends her lips: Well then: congratulations And the little eyes aretwo caresses: lookthrough, like lamp-shades: if you take them offtwo little fires; and our nameday boy bows his brow to the thrust out lips; I know: they are now ignited from the eyes; everyones fiery little eyes flame up; yes, yes,how many times had Papa celebrated the nameday: andhow many will he still celebrate: but if you already glance there,andstriking old age stands with its gift: with an ungrateful stroke. And Papochka is old: already fifty years old. He sits at the table, resting before his difficult obligation: to treat the visitors, proposing first whitefish, then cheese, then butter, then sherry, before a piece of chocolate-colored wall, leaning his big head on the jambs of his coffee-colored shelves; he sits without spectacles in a palegray dressing gown; he sitsin great tendernessthus, neither this way nor that, having placed before himself the cream torte of Tolstopyatov, falling with his let-down little shoulder all falling to the chair, so bigbrowed, with a fallen lock of hair; his head, barely leaning to the side, amazing us faithfully with totally light blue eyes (not brown): Now thats a scandal! The nameday boy. Tell us, please. He smiled very quietly to himself and at everything there was; and he seemed like a Chinese ascetic, seeking the Middle Use and Constancy of Confucius; such clarityno, I had not seen. But meanwhile first Dunyasha, then Mama would approach him: The beadles have come to congratulate you. The yardman Anton has come The night watchman The plumber Papa winked helplessly at us with guilty little eyes; and he thundered out his little jokes: A beadle isnt a beagle. Anton? Without an antonovka apple? And, obtaining his wallet, he spread around his money. It was already past eleven oclock in the morning: a crow eyeballed us in the windows: Shoo, shoo. She flew past. In the dining room the tables had now been arranged; and the leaves, enormous boards had been covered with a snowwhite tablecloth; mountains of resounding china plates had been wiped to a sparkle; the knives jingled against the forks which are being placed by Dunyasha; displaying a silly puss, a greasy whitefish, golden-brown, had been smoked on a plate; and there appeared cheeses and sausages, and liqueur glasses and a flock of bottles; and bent semicircles of benches surrounded the table; there was cleanliness and orderin everything. This was managed by Mama, elegant in a checkered skirt, wagging an enormous bustle, rustling a kazakin, magnificent and rosy, with a hairdo, pointed like a tower, pierced with a little golden comb; and with little eyes, painfully biting the horny hand of Dunyasha: No, no. Not here. With a lighted rosy little face of a tiny doll: the throat pierced by a brooch which isround; inside of ita whiteplumed lady sits with hair totally rusty-red: this is some sort of favorite: a madam; I see; Mamas little eyes, misty eyes, now sharpened like leeches eyes; greenish little fires began running along the earring with the diamond: Youve let the fumes out of the kitchen again. Andreddish little fires began running along the earring with the diamond. The sound of the bellvery resoundingly: Mamasha. Thats Granny: in a luminous, brown velveteen dress with gala ribbons of a fresh velveteen headdress, with a lilaceous Mass card in her hands; and she is without a bustle; behind her browless Auntie pales like a thin little stick; following behind herpillared to the ground unable to resolve whether to enter, all gilded with freckles, correcting, just imagine, his white tie, was Uncle Vasya himself. And Mama says to him: This is the height of impropriety! A white tie with a frock coat. And here from the kitchen came the smell of pies: with cabbage, with ricewith fish, with viziga, with carrots and with meat. Oh, how many rosy, ruddy noses will glow ruddy, running into the anteroom, clicking their heels, wheeze, blow their noses loudly and push aside their fur coats into Dunyashas hands, bringing in after them from the frost the tickling smell of something burning; how many will shake off the sparkling snow from icicled mustaches, so that, having played every game to beautify themselves, to fly in kindlylooking, stumbling against the dish of borne-in big kulebyaka; the sound of the bell: the bull-legged professor, a gray warted one, here passes in white-browed with congratulations, sits down, thrusts a piece of kulebyaka into a smacking mouth; and he begins splashing out slobbering words; the sound of the bell: Mrs. Malinovsky becomes a ragged skeleton, with a white, bloodless facelike flattened ivy; it reminds one bitingly; she sniffs at the air with her violet little nose; she spoils the air with a foul-smelling little question; with her swims past a lady, a multigenetrix, with a big belly; Malinovsky asks: Which one? The twelfth. A selfpraising smart aleck, a juicymouthed barrister, cracking his starch, shows himself, he sets his gaze somehow cherrily at the sherry, he squeezes through his teeth his double entendre, and, pecking at his liqueur glass, he burps like a ram; an overstarched chinkerthere he is: chink, chinktalks like a tinker. Someone, strangely stained, sullen, like iodine solution, forgets to withdraw; and he stays to dine with us; a crackerjack neer-do-well rises from his place and, having made a general bow, to which no one answers him, passes into the halfdusk of the anteroom, leaving without having sampled the bread and salt of our hospitality; in its full complement, as it seems, all of the department roars at the table at our place; the administrator of the surrounding school district himself brings his calling card, but he does not enter; bowing caressively, such a kind and shamefaced Professor Zhukovsky will screw up his eyes: a mans man, but he cries in a voice, like a woman; through the door, bumping into the already withdrawing Zhukovsky, bringing with him his gray streak from the creation of the world, unchangingly comes out the very tiny kindly winking Anuchin; he seemed to me a small little fish; but very bony (if you swallow ityoull choke: he sits down at our place to look at the mood of society: hold your ear sharp. Surely the Russian Gazette received the know-ledge): I recently met him again on the street: having met, I recalled that for thirty-five years I had known him completely the same: he was always very oldish, grayish; surely, he has walked from diapers with a gray little beard, with whirlwinds of whitening hair, jumping above a tiny, wrinkled little brow, with a red, hanging nose, which he grabs with his fingers; in breaks the cloudy, always panting a word, Sergei Alekseevich Usov, cobbling on three-four warts, exactly like on a very tasty berry: yes, a wild strawberry is growing on him; his one-pound, heavy word totally slams the chinker; that one, slammed, phooeys, like an anther; and in a cloud of phooey, green phooey,settles down on the tablecloth: none other than Veselovsky different, ox-eyed, blown up with such weightless, high flown air: he always blows up the lightest, ornate word, which is borne like a blown-off down of fluff (if it falls in the nose, youll sneeze so,you cant believe); and either Aleksei Veselovsky is giving us a speech, or he is so haughtily blowing off the blossoms of a dandelion; here is borne like fluff, not knowing where and why, on the words framed with hairs Sergei Alek- seevich Usov, smoking, sprinkles ashes, listening sarcastically; suddenly he hisses, and lets out a joking word like a smoky ring: the joker flies off for a smoke: yes, I know, that they will all be here. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Well now, it begins: I hear the sounds of the bell; I sit downto observe (under the little window; there beyond the little window: a crow knocks blacknosed on the window from a white snow fluff): clouds have begun to move; and a silverplumed snowflake fluffily flies: into the dining room quickly flies a first-year student, bignosed, with a black beard, with a sword; and Papa goes out to meet him; he flies up im-petuously, ecstatically jerks Papas hand; and clicking his heels, from the force of the click he flies through the room to the corner with a torn-off poor hand (oh, how many hands were torn off by him); he passes through from here to the table: to let down his nose above the plate: this isBatyushkov, the grandson of the poet; theosophy waits ahead for him; and two more students arrive: one isAleksei Nikolaevich Severtsov, gaunt, tall, bent in the image of an old man; Pasha Usov, a student with the look of a folk hero, passes, in passing tossing his palm in the air: and a silverplumed fluffy snowflake flies beyond the window, fluffily lying down; the crow was crestfallen; she has become a little sphere: she has long been chained to the spot; I look both here and there: beyond the little window and at the door; they are serving kulebyaka; snowy elders pass by respectably; stern elders stare inspiredly: in the space of the dining room they boom words; Papa stoops with unnecessary help; widenosed, at times indicating at the table: Pt de volaille. I offer for your attention. And Mamochka looks kindly: With meat. And always the silverplumed snow flies by like weightless fluff tacked together; crows pressed against one another on the roof: they bleat with the laughter of sheep: yes, yes,Malinovsky to the taste isa dry sea roach, and by her bonesa prickly smelt; why does she make it look like she is a liberal calf. And she sets aside an arm, and sets a leg, and simply milky rivers flow; they bleat with the laughter of sheep; she stands: ga-ga-ga,--ba-ba-baDey rabb They robbed They are voting the phrases intersect:But no,hurry to serve up a resolution in the departmental order Dunyasha, what are you doing? Madam, there is no place to hang the fur coats Hang your diploma on the wall, my good sir... Dey rabb Ba-ba-baga-ga-ga, The buffet begins to shake: this is Papa, his eyes shining, passing with a bottle of rowanberry vodka and bowing in quick service: Some rowanberry vodka. Eh, yes, he is a soaper: blown up with words, he flew like bubbles; he burst. I am telling you, that heburst, hisses from smoking Sergei Alekseevich Usov but here ap-pears Aleksei Nikolaevich Veselovsky himself, arrogantly blown up; and everyonefalls silent: Ppss. Ppss. The atomizer whistled a piney stream: that is Ma-mochka wanting to cleanse the smokefilled air: Mimochka, Fimochka, Fifochka, Fofochka, Misik, Tosik and I are going for the holidays to our brothers place in the country Ga-ga-ba-ba-ba. Papa leapt up quickly, the pocket of his mantle caught again on the arm of the chair, he tore off the pocket: Turn your attention over here: caviar! he bowed down over Grot, who, entering, intersected the crooked mouth malice of the pro-fessors wives, had already settled down blackbrowed in a magnificent (isnt it too magnificent) pose, natural (too natural), his black curls with his beard bowing into his hand; and he makes very beautiful gestures with his other hand: Pass the dos desturgeon. But stooping and so goodnosedly fixing his gaze with his spectacles, my Papa stands behind his back, finding a minute to indicate with his hand: The pt de volaille is very tasty And Grot: I give you thanks. He turns to the multisuckeress of sour lemons; and Papa, bespectacled, bigheaded, but tossing and turning, having left Grot, spreads funny points of humor everywhere, he leads parallel lines with his dark brown little eyes; andtosses off (one after another) parallels: from the cheese to the sausages; today there is no time for him to philosophize; and Grot is philosophizing before the important twolipped fool, Professor Kislenkos wife; yes, they sayin her are bigbreasted passions, but she is held by a pulled-in deerskin; her lips are pulled up like a small pea as if shes collected herself to whistle: if you let them go, they will burst; Mamochka timidly indicates to her a bunch of grapes; sheturns away, as if she hadnt heard; and Mama, insulted, offers again: the twolipped fool answers her with excessive rudeness; she turns her bustle; and with pulled-in deer-skin she listens to the very handsome Grot: and with a pencil stub she makes notes very submissively in her little book; listening to Grot is the venerable phrasemonger, all blown up by two jubilees; compressed by his prepared phrase, like by a strong corset, he sits waiting an appropriate occasion,he tosses up his pince-nez; andhe is drawn like a white bald patch; andthen: the occasion struck; andhe raises his glass, raises himself, and rising on the back of the chair,he blows his mouth and a wispy bubble is imaged; the veins fill; and from his forceful efforts sand sprinkles down; and he raises with his right hand the champagne higher and higher; and with his left, hardly waving, near the mouth he starts to develop all of this: he develops it to such length, that there is not enough hand; hereit bursts: and all look with respect at the blank and general place; a finger rocks in the air, and in space hung being weighed the glass, and everything else has burst: there is no one; onlya chair; and under the chair a sandy handful; they carry out the handful; they clink glasses with Papa: this was said to him: he, he isa dear nameday boy; he attracted the phrasemonger, who, after all, every dayso (until his jubilee, his third) blows about somewhere: somewhere he had spoken a library full, but writtentwo brochures; oppositesits an unimaginable mischief-maker: he had grown his hair to his eyes,to the small narrow slits of the eyes: to the most malicious, most clever: andhe scratches himself: some kind of monkey. But they say,he is a clever one Vindalai Urvantsev: I fear that he will bark; he barks,everyones hands shake from horror; his mouth widens apart to the end of the world; from there comes the smell of the ocean; he is called the Trumpet of Jericho; and no matter where he trumpetsit is the first day; andchaoses; andtwenty-five babblers simply burst; then he closes his mouth; andscratches himself; andhe looks around: wild and red, confused; after himfive minutes of silence: I seemouths are moving, but I do not hear: I have gone deaf; Vindalai Urvantsev strikes like the Czar cannon; he strikesan oceanic width wafts by; he, having struck, grows confused; timid: there is no way at all he can marry; he is always getting married, getting married, but from the wedding crownhe flees It darkens in the dining room, it thins out: beyond the windows, there,oh, what burning enthusiasm, transfiguration andshining; transsubstantiated, arising from the noncolored dayselfcolored, enlightened: purplish red, crimson, violet; andit seems new; and the day isaerated, illumined; it flies straight into the night; but in the dining room there is sheer disorder; the collection ate and perspired, sat, made a racket; it seemedeverything was in accord; everywhere discords began anew, it seemed that at our table were imagedSmiths and Bears were everywhere separating one in front of the other; by turns they tossed fists and wordsinto the middle ground between them; in the middlekeeping silent is Uncle Vasya, frightened by a shout; they had already torn off the smoked skin; under it the pale white dos desturgeon, having shown its meat, had been eaten: only the fishy smoked puss stared totally amazed with an unmoving eye, afterwards going into the bone pile; from the pt de volaille remained a yellowing fat and lead paper, and from the caviara drying knife; no one is sounding the bell; a hubbub filled the anteroom; and chairs remained everywhere, imaging here doubles, and there triples, frozen in argument; herea rumpled table cloth, and therea spill. And it isalways thus: they always used to look blankly into their own thunder of words; one snitters, everyonechuckles; andthen fall silent; and suddenly they begin to run like thunder around the rooms; chairs were moved about, they take their leaves; andpress invitations on one another; the hors doevres areall eaten up; a multitude of dirty dishes is being borne off to the kitchen; everything is first washed, it will be concealed again in the buffet; everything begins to flow like old times, as if there had never been a Saint Mikhails day; but it will be again; this will allbe repeated; it has been repeated since Adam; and it will be at the raising of the dead; yes, the dead, having risen from the snow, will come, thundering with their galoshes on this secretive day to our place at the table: oh, what burning enthusiasm, trans-figuration, beyond the windows; everything there has been trans-substantiated from the noncolored day,to the selfcolored, enlightened: purplish red, crimson, violet; andextinguishes. Everything isblank: and our dear nameday boy has withdrawn to rest; Mama also rests; but from the corner appeared a blackoak-bigbeard; this isa shadow; itexits quietly; and wanderslightly; it scratches quietly the wallpaper... with its cockroach; blackthoughts pass, big-beards pass with a noiseless gait; they stand up in crowds, take each other by the hands; one hand flows into another; and there will be single blackness: night is a presenceyes: of very many; andno: not the absence of them . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Already beyond the windows the cold has bluenedthere at everything with a crawling smoke; a gradation of all darkenings has composed itself into light bluish dims: from blue-gray andto blue-blue; and from it to blue-black, even to black-violet; all this darkenedinto the poured ink beyond the little window: dense, sheer. And our nameday boy: lies on the bed: on the hard bed, crammed in by the bookcase, totally without spectacles, exposing wrinkles around the eyes, secreted by the glasses,pale, tired, having thinned during the day and growing darker in the darkenings of the day: and passing dusk throws a row of its gloomy veils on this face; in the blue-gray it is still white, but in the blue-blue itbegan to grayen; in the sheer blue-black it barely bluens from the bed: Yes, Papochkais growing old He leaps up from the bed; and wipes his eyes: Ahahah. He stirs about over his spectacles; andbustles about, searching for a pencil stub and striking a match: the blackpaths of the nights have burst apartin the sparkle of the candles. What are you doingits harmful to boil about such: the whole day. No matter, no matter. And he withdrewinto calculations. Shouldnt you go to the club. A flowing tear began to shudder from the eyes: I fear that I will break out crying: in the time running past we run inescapably; I with a yellowish constructo cube, Mamawith a hat carton and Papochka with a new brochure: On the radical e - x : I fear: I break out crying: well, I can still run, Mama still can, but Papawhere can he run to? He had already knocked off fifty: was a nameday boy; andhe ceased to be one: he ran from his nameday along the road of time and I exited quietly into the drawing room: armchairs stood in gloom; and in the chairs sat: a company of glooms,and they teased here the sitting guests; and such glooms gazed at the glass window panes with weighty glances; the glooms stood under the light shades; glooms stood in an espalier: of dumb cavaliers who had donned their tail coats.  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