Romance With a Double Bass
The musician Smychkov was walking from the town to the villa of Prince Bibulov, where, on the occasion of a betrothal, an evening with music and dancing ‘was to be held.’ On his back rested a huge double bass in a leather case. Smychkov walked along the riverbank, which rolled its cool waters not exactly majestically, but quite poetically.
‘Should I take a dip?’ he thought.
Without thinking long, he undressed and immersed his body in the cool currents. The evening was magnificent. Smychkov’s poetic soul began to tune itself in harmony with its surroundings. But what a sweet feeling seized his soul when, having swum about a hundred paces to the side, he saw a beautiful girl sitting on the steep bank and fishing. He held his breath and froze from an influx of diverse feelings: childhood memories, longing for the past, awakened love… My God, and he had thought he was no longer capable of loving!
After he had lost faith in humanity (his dearly beloved wife had run off with his friend, the bassoonist Sobakin), his chest was filled with a sense of emptiness, and he became a misanthrope.
‘What is life?’ he had asked himself more than once.
‘What do we live for? Life is a myth, a dream… ventriloquism…’
But standing before the sleeping beauty (it was not hard to notice she was asleep), he suddenly, against his will, felt something akin to love in his chest. For a long time he stood before her, devouring her with his eyes…
‘But enough…’ he thought, letting out a deep sigh. ‘Farewell, wondrous vision! It is already time for me to go to the ball at His Excellency’s…’
And, glancing at the beauty once more, he was about to swim back when an idea flashed in his mind.
‘I must leave her a memory of myself!’ he thought. ‘I’ll attach something to her fishing rod. It will be a surprise from the ‘unknown one’.’
Smychkov quietly swam to the shore, picked a large bouquet of field and water flowers, and, tying it with a stalk of goosefoot, attached it to the fishing rod.
The bouquet went to the bottom and dragged the beautiful float down with it.
Prudence, the laws of nature, and the social standing of my hero require that the romance end at this very spot, but — alas! — the author’s fate is inexorable: due to circum-stances beyond the author’s control, the romance did not end with the bouquet. Contrary to common sense and the nature of things, the poor and obscure double bass player was destined to play an important role in the life of a noble and wealthy beauty.
Having swum to the shore, Smychkov was struck: he did not see his clothes. They had been stolen… Unknown villains, while he was admiring the beauty, had carried off everything except the double bass and the top hat.
‘Curse it!’ Smychkov exclaimed. ‘O, people, offspring of vipers! It is not so much the loss of clothes that outrages me (for clothes are perishable), as the thought that I will have to go naked and thereby transgress against public morality.’
He sat down on the double bass case and began to look for a way out of his terrible situation.
‘I can’t go to Prince Bibulov’s naked!’ he thought. ‘There will be ladies there! And besides, along with my trousers, the thieves stole the rosin that was in them!’
He thought long and hard, until his temples ached.
‘Aha!’ he finally remembered. ‘Not far from the shore in the bushes, there is a small bridge… Until it gets dark, I can sit under that bridge, and in the evening, in the darkness, I’ll make my way to the first hut…’
Having settled on this idea, Smychkov put on his top hat, hoisted the double bass onto his back, and trudged toward the bushes. Naked, with a musical instrument on his back, he resembled some ancient, mythical demigod.
Now, reader, while my hero sits under the bridge and indulges in grief, let us leave him for a while and turn to the girl who was fishing. What became of her? The beauty, waking up and not seeing the float on the water, hurried to tug at the line. The line tightened, but the hook and float did not appear from the water. Apparently, Smychkov’s bouquet had soaked in the water, swelled, and become heavy.
‘Either a big fish has been caught,’ the girl thought, ‘or the rod is snagged.’
After tugging at the line a bit more, the girl decided the hook was snagged.
‘What a pity!’ she thought. ‘And the biting is so good in the evening! What should I do?’
And, without thinking long, the eccentric girl cast off her ethereal garments and immersed her beautiful body in the currents up to her marble shoulders. It was not easy to unhook the hook from the bouquet in which the line had become entangled, but patience and labor took their toll. After some quarter of an hour, the beauty, radiant and hap-py, was stepping out of the water, holding the hook in her hand. But evil fate was watching her. The scoundrels who stole Smychkov’s clothes had also made off with her dress, leaving her only a jar of worms.
‘What am I to do now?’ she wept. ‘Am I really to go in such a state? No, never! Death is better! I will wait until it gets dark; then, in the darkness, I will reach Aunt Agafya and send her home for a dress… And meanwhile, I’ll go hide under the bridge.’
My heroine, choosing the tallest grass and stooping, ran toward the bridge. Crawling under the bridge, she saw a naked man there with a musical mane and a hairy chest, screamed, and lost consciousness.
Smychkov was also frightened. At first, he took the girl for a naiad.
‘Is this not a river siren come to draw me away?’ he thought, and this assumption flattered him, as he had always held a high opinion of his appearance. ‘But if she is not a siren, but a human, how to explain this strange transformation? Why is she here, under the bridge? And what is the matter with her?’
While he was resolving these questions, the beauty was coming to her senses.
‘Don’t kill me!’ she whispered. ‘I am Princess Bibulova. I implore you! You will be given a lot of money! Just now I was unhooking a hook in the water and some thieves stole my new dress, shoes, and everything!’
‘Madam!’ he said in a pleading voice. ‘My clothes were also stolen. Moreover, along with the trousers, they carried off the rosin that was in them!’
All double-bass and trombone players are usually unresourceful; Smychkov, however, was a pleasant exception.
‘Madam!’ he said after a short while. ‘I see that my appearance embarrasses you. But, you must agree, I cannot leave here for the same reasons as you. Here is what I have devised: would you be so kind as to lie down in my double bass case and cover yourself with the lid? This will hide me from you…’
Having said this, Smychkov pulled the double bass out of the case. For a moment it seemed to him that by giving up the case, he was profaning holy art, but his hesitation was brief. The beauty lay down in the case and curled up into a ball, while he tightened the straps and began to rejoice that nature had endowed him with such an intellect.
‘Now, madam, you cannot see me,’ he said. ‘Lie here and be at peace. When it gets dark, I will carry you to your parents’ house. As for the double bass, I can come back for it later.’
With the onset of darkness, Smychkov hoisted the case with the beauty onto his shoulders and trudged toward Bibulov’s villa. His plan was this: first, he would reach the first hut and obtain some clothes, then he would go further…
‘Every cloud has a silver lining…’ he thought, stirring up the dust with his bare feet and bending under the load. ‘For the warm concern I have shown for the princess’s fate, Bibulov will surely reward me handsomely.’
‘Madam, are you comfortable?’ he asked in the tone of a cavalier galant[1], inviting someone to a quadrille. ‘Please, do not stand on ceremony and make yourself at home in my case!’
Suddenly it seemed to the gallant Smychkov that ahead of him, shrouded in darkness, two human figures were walking. Looking more closely, he became convinced it was no optical illusion: the figures were indeed walking and even carrying some kind of bundles in their hands…
‘Could they be thieves?’ flashed through his mind. ‘They are carrying something! Most likely, it is our clothes!’
Smychkov placed the case by the road and gave chase to the figures.
‘Stop!’ he shouted. ‘Stop! Catch them!’
The figures looked back and, noticing the pursuit, began to take to their heels… The princess heard the rapid footsteps and the cries of ‘Stop!’ for a long time. Finally, everything fell silent.
Smychkov was carried away by the pursuit, and most likely, the beauty would have had to lie in the field by the road for a long time, were it not for a happy stroke of luck. It happened that at that very time, Smychkov’s comrades, the flute Zhuchkov and the clarinet Razmakhaykin, were walking along the same road to Bibulov’s villa. Stumbling over the case, they both looked at each other in surprise and threw up their hands.
‘A double bass!’ said Zhuchkov. ‘Bah, why, it’s our Smychkov’s double bass! But how did it get here?’
‘Most likely, something happened to Smychkov,’ decided Razmakhaykin. ‘Or he got drunk, or he was robbed… In any case, it won’t do to leave the double bass here. Let’s take it with us.’
Zhuchkov hoisted the case onto his back, and the musicians went on.
‘Devil knows what a weight!’ the flute grumbled all the way. ‘Not for anything in the world would I agree to play such a monster… Phew!’
Arriving at Prince Bibulov’s villa, the musicians placed the case in the spot reserved for the orchestra and went to the buffet.
At this time, the chandeliers and sconces were already being lit at the villa. The groom, Court Councilor Lakeich, a handsome and pleasant official of the Department of Railways, stood in the middle of the hall and, with his hands in his pockets, was conversing with Count Shkalikov. They were talking about music.
‘I, Count,’ Lakeich was saying, ‘was personally acquaint-ed in Naples with a violinist who performed literal miracles. You won’t believe it! On a double bass… on an ordinary double bass, he produced such devilish trills that it was simply terrifying! He played Strauss waltzes!’
‘Come now, that is impossible…’ the Count doubted.
‘I assure you! He even performed a Liszt rhapsody! I shared a room with him and even, having nothing better to do, learned from him how to play Liszt’s rhapsody on the double bass.’
‘A Liszt rhapsody… Hm!.. You are joking…’
‘You don’t believe me?’ Lakeich laughed. ‘Then I shall prove it to you right now! Let’s go to the orchestra!’
The groom and the Count headed toward the orchestra.
Approaching the double bass, they began to quickly unfasten the straps… and — oh, horror!
But here, while the reader, having given free rein to their imagination, pictures the outcome of the musical dispute, let us turn back to Smychkov… The poor musician, failing to catch the thieves and returning to the place where he had left the case, did not see the precious burden. Lost in conjecture, he walked back and forth along the road several times and, not finding the case, decided that he had taken the wrong road…
‘This is terrible!’ he thought, clutching his hair and freezing with fear. ‘She will suffocate in the case! I am a murderer!’
Until midnight, Smychkov walked the roads searching for the case, but finally, exhausted, he went under the bridge.
‘I will search at dawn,’ he decided.
The search at dawn yielded the same result, and Smychkov decided to wait under the bridge for nightfall…
‘I will find her!’ he muttered, taking off his top hat and clutching his hair. ‘Even if I search for a year, I will find her!’
And even now, the peasants living in the described localities say that at night near the bridge, one can see a certain naked man, overgrown with hair and wearing a top hat.
Occasionally, the wheezing of a double bass can be heard from under the bridge.
[1] Сourteous gentleman
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.