Read Online Calligraphy Lesson by Mikhail Shishkin - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Mikhail Shishkin
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couldnât love in the dark her whole life. And it certainly wasnât the sistersâ instigation that made her, on that last night, take a sharpened razor and a lamp filled to the top with oil to identify her secret husband, who was kind to the touch but invisible in the fortunate darkness. Alone now, she worries in her sorrow, although her decision has been made and her soul is adamant. Nonetheless she still wavers, rushes, delays, dares, trembles, despairs, rages,hates, and loves the darkness she has taken in, but evening is on its way to night, and the girl hastily hides the razor under her pillow and covers the burning lamp with a flowerpot. The final moments of anticipation. Agonizing, crazy-making moments that make her shudder. Suddenly the rustle of an approach. And now Psyche welcomes the night ascending to herâits shoulders and back scattered with freckles, like oatmeal. Coitus with the darkness. At last her mystery spouse falls still beside her, rolled up in a ball. Now Psyche, weakened in body and soul, rises, takes out the lamp, clasps the razor in her fist, takes a step, still not daring to look, and lifts the lamp, expecting to see on her bed a god or a beastâbut itâs you.
The day after classes ended, I stopped by the university vivarium, but they said Alexei Pavlovich wasnât there. I walked past the glass cases where white mice swarmed in trays. When I pulled one out by the tail, a whole cluster latched on. Their red eyes burned like cranberries. Frogs were laid up in huge, smelly jars, and the moment you opened a lid, one would fly out and land smack down on the brick floor.
A fish supper at home. They called for me. I locked myself in my room.
Daughter, up and at âem. The surgeonâs sturgeonâs tired of waiting.
Eat without me, Iâll eat later.
Zhenya, stop it.
I canât eat out there. He smacks his lips. Then heâll take a toothpick out of his pocket and dig around.
Why are you being like this?
Like what?
Enough, letâs go.
Mika took the fish bones out for Roman, laid them on the rim, and the dish turned into a staring eye with off-white lashes.
You said: no letters. My naïve Alexei Pavlovich. You forgot about cartes postales. Not in vain did a bald professor at the Vienna Military Academy once drop the first postcard into a mailbox, paying for it with two Kreuzers and his entire soul. Ever since, the departed professor, taking on cardboard flesh, has languished around the world and found no rest. I found a whole pack of them neatly held by a rubber band in Vera Lvovnaâs writing desk. When you were away, you sent cards home daily with the sights and views, andâunintimidated by the censorsâcalled your spouse your little mouse, your little bun, even your little fanny. Moreover, you always drew yourself in a picture: a stick man in a hat either roaming spectrally down the Samara embankment, or standing like a poetâs shadow on the bluff of the Piatigorsk gap, or scrambling up the Admiralty spire like a gorilla. How, you might well ask yourself, can one resist such temptation, having fooled you and the postal department, of writing a postcard, an open letter, addressed at this late hour to all sleeping humanity? Here, please accept, from a place where this night cannot reach me, an unpretentious card with a glossy country landscape, gilt edging on the sunset clouds, a card scratched by swifts, splashed by a drop of a blossoming pond fragrant with lilac and iodineâitâs my father, lost in conversation, whose bandaged finger keeps missing the point. Do you recognize our clumsy house, saturated with damp, permeated by mosquito buzzing, the sunny porch where a wet footprint vanishes instantly, the peeling barrel where the little bleakfish Iâd caught were hidden away until October? When the barrel was emptied for the winter, the fish flopped all over the ground, sticking to the fallen leaves. And here, under the
The day after classes ended, I stopped by the university vivarium, but they said Alexei Pavlovich wasnât there. I walked past the glass cases where white mice swarmed in trays. When I pulled one out by the tail, a whole cluster latched on. Their red eyes burned like cranberries. Frogs were laid up in huge, smelly jars, and the moment you opened a lid, one would fly out and land smack down on the brick floor.
A fish supper at home. They called for me. I locked myself in my room.
Daughter, up and at âem. The surgeonâs sturgeonâs tired of waiting.
Eat without me, Iâll eat later.
Zhenya, stop it.
I canât eat out there. He smacks his lips. Then heâll take a toothpick out of his pocket and dig around.
Why are you being like this?
Like what?
Enough, letâs go.
Mika took the fish bones out for Roman, laid them on the rim, and the dish turned into a staring eye with off-white lashes.
You said: no letters. My naïve Alexei Pavlovich. You forgot about cartes postales. Not in vain did a bald professor at the Vienna Military Academy once drop the first postcard into a mailbox, paying for it with two Kreuzers and his entire soul. Ever since, the departed professor, taking on cardboard flesh, has languished around the world and found no rest. I found a whole pack of them neatly held by a rubber band in Vera Lvovnaâs writing desk. When you were away, you sent cards home daily with the sights and views, andâunintimidated by the censorsâcalled your spouse your little mouse, your little bun, even your little fanny. Moreover, you always drew yourself in a picture: a stick man in a hat either roaming spectrally down the Samara embankment, or standing like a poetâs shadow on the bluff of the Piatigorsk gap, or scrambling up the Admiralty spire like a gorilla. How, you might well ask yourself, can one resist such temptation, having fooled you and the postal department, of writing a postcard, an open letter, addressed at this late hour to all sleeping humanity? Here, please accept, from a place where this night cannot reach me, an unpretentious card with a glossy country landscape, gilt edging on the sunset clouds, a card scratched by swifts, splashed by a drop of a blossoming pond fragrant with lilac and iodineâitâs my father, lost in conversation, whose bandaged finger keeps missing the point. Do you recognize our clumsy house, saturated with damp, permeated by mosquito buzzing, the sunny porch where a wet footprint vanishes instantly, the peeling barrel where the little bleakfish Iâd caught were hidden away until October? When the barrel was emptied for the winter, the fish flopped all over the ground, sticking to the fallen leaves. And here, under the
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