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Authors: Andrei Bitov
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No, of course not! I wasn’t her pimp. Perhaps it wasn’t very proper, but believe me, it was absolutely pure. In Italian jargon there is even a word for it: dinamo . And so we hoodwinked others. She would make plans with someone, saying that she wanted to drink and was absolutely famished. The admirer rolled up in a car packed with wines and delicacies. She set the table, lit candles—and then I made my presence known. She was terribly embarrassed, took me off to one side and whispered to me guiltily (the admirer didn’t know what she said). Then she took the admirer aside and whispered to him in secret. (I knew what she was saying: he’s just a boy, a greenhorn—Italian blood. And the most persuasive argument: I had promised to marry her; but the admirer hadn’t.) Then we sat down to dinner together.
“No one is as obliging as the man next in line to his predecessor, or the deceiver to the deceived. It was very amusing to watch. At first I would sulk and scowl, but I didn’t play the part to the end. I was too hungry. You should have seen how courteously I was served—you can’t find a better waiter than a happy rival! He also regaled me with conversation to dispel any awkwardness … The longer I remained silent (my mouth was full), the more he talked, trying indirectly to convince me I wasn’t a cuckold. Oh, it was the sweetest sort of vaudeville! Such delicate word choice, it was like dancing between knives. I would eat my fill, then fall into a sulk. The rival left at the first opportunity, usually without even tasting his own offerings—and we fell into one another’s embrace.
“I must admit, they were pleasant people, and I wasn’t at all jealous of her past. (Funny how I fell into the same logic as my rivals.) They seemed to acknowledge us as a couple. Only one of them saw through us—and we became friends with him, since we all liked each other so much. Fat, bald, lively, he perspired constantly. He had a strange profession: he was a master of ceremonies. He was always on the move. Prone to boasting, he never demanded that we believe him. A good man … There was only one thing he kept insisting on—he said he was a close friend of Charlie Chaplin’s, which he tried to prove by fishing around in an abyss of tattered receipts and documents. In the end, he never found the calling card. So we didn’t believe him; and he was genuinely upset.
“I don’t know how many days passed—probably as many days as there were admirers. We started on a Sunday, that much I know for sure. Either the admirers grew fewer, or the days grew longer. Suddenly I had a dream about the novel. A new ending. A new version. My hero, before he went to commit ‘the deed,’ after he had paid all his debts and destroyed his receipts, after he had carefully washed, shaved, and strapped on the grenades … Just then, right before the banquet, he goes to discharge one more duty. He goes to say goodbye to the only person on Earth who wasn’t indifferent to him: naturally, to the woman who is devoted to him. (You have already guessed that my solitary avenger, who considers himself very callous and unfeeling, is secretly very sentimental—but the one does not exclude the other.) He enacts a scene in which he takes leave of her forever, confesses to his own heartlessness, says that he has the right, etc., and then, won over by the honesty and persuasiveness of his arguments, she finally believes him—this is it, this is the end—and sets him free. And when he decides not to blow himself up, when he has flung his burned-out lightbulbs into the dark expanse of ocean, he ends up, finally and absolutely, alone. He has nowhere to go. He no longer even has a home. He has sold it. He doesn’t even have money: he gave it all away. What need would he have for money after blowing himself up? He has no one to turn to. He has no relatives, and he has just parted ways forever with the only woman who could put up with him. His soul is
“No one is as obliging as the man next in line to his predecessor, or the deceiver to the deceived. It was very amusing to watch. At first I would sulk and scowl, but I didn’t play the part to the end. I was too hungry. You should have seen how courteously I was served—you can’t find a better waiter than a happy rival! He also regaled me with conversation to dispel any awkwardness … The longer I remained silent (my mouth was full), the more he talked, trying indirectly to convince me I wasn’t a cuckold. Oh, it was the sweetest sort of vaudeville! Such delicate word choice, it was like dancing between knives. I would eat my fill, then fall into a sulk. The rival left at the first opportunity, usually without even tasting his own offerings—and we fell into one another’s embrace.
“I must admit, they were pleasant people, and I wasn’t at all jealous of her past. (Funny how I fell into the same logic as my rivals.) They seemed to acknowledge us as a couple. Only one of them saw through us—and we became friends with him, since we all liked each other so much. Fat, bald, lively, he perspired constantly. He had a strange profession: he was a master of ceremonies. He was always on the move. Prone to boasting, he never demanded that we believe him. A good man … There was only one thing he kept insisting on—he said he was a close friend of Charlie Chaplin’s, which he tried to prove by fishing around in an abyss of tattered receipts and documents. In the end, he never found the calling card. So we didn’t believe him; and he was genuinely upset.
“I don’t know how many days passed—probably as many days as there were admirers. We started on a Sunday, that much I know for sure. Either the admirers grew fewer, or the days grew longer. Suddenly I had a dream about the novel. A new ending. A new version. My hero, before he went to commit ‘the deed,’ after he had paid all his debts and destroyed his receipts, after he had carefully washed, shaved, and strapped on the grenades … Just then, right before the banquet, he goes to discharge one more duty. He goes to say goodbye to the only person on Earth who wasn’t indifferent to him: naturally, to the woman who is devoted to him. (You have already guessed that my solitary avenger, who considers himself very callous and unfeeling, is secretly very sentimental—but the one does not exclude the other.) He enacts a scene in which he takes leave of her forever, confesses to his own heartlessness, says that he has the right, etc., and then, won over by the honesty and persuasiveness of his arguments, she finally believes him—this is it, this is the end—and sets him free. And when he decides not to blow himself up, when he has flung his burned-out lightbulbs into the dark expanse of ocean, he ends up, finally and absolutely, alone. He has nowhere to go. He no longer even has a home. He has sold it. He doesn’t even have money: he gave it all away. What need would he have for money after blowing himself up? He has no one to turn to. He has no relatives, and he has just parted ways forever with the only woman who could put up with him. His soul is
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