1. ZAITILSHCHINA
The moon is clear, you can’t keep track of the dates, the year is the present one. To Citizen Sidor Fomich Pozhilykh, with respect from Zynzyrela Ilya Petrikeich Zaitilshchina. Allow me, I’ll begin now. Citizen Pozhilykh. Although you probably don’t recognize me, Citizen, I am the same, old and, for these parts, relatively an outsider, but since I am a knife-grinder, I grind knives and scissors, and you are unlikely to throw me off balance, even if at first glance I am a complete stump. I grind scythes, axes, and other household goods, but such details would only complicate the speech. For the stated reason, I also omit the events of the years that have rung-out-and-off-the-bell-tower, only insisting that up to this day I have not been convicted, despite dwelling in significant cities. I lived wherever they housed me, and simply, I wasn’t genuinely worried about family, and I earned money by asking the public to assist as much as possible. And I repent for this, having chosen the Artel (cooperative) of Individuals named after D. The Grinder. You must excuse me, of course, but the office is independent, and the price list is readily available. In warm weather—all the same knives: we walk around and about and go into off-season trades. Conversely, in the frosts we serve the population by grinding and riveting, since from November to April, daily, without days off, bachelors and freaks like your correspondent jingle and whirl on the mirror of the waters, and as soon as it gets dark—you welcome them into a three-story hellhole, dubbed kubare by some traveling hand; but you won’t find Ilya among them. You will feel sad: who is he, this gloomy creature, why doesn’t he get himself a pair of sharpened skates, like normal people, does he really scorn to shuffle on the smooth ice with sharp blades, does he really turn up his nose at a mug of socially beneficial beer? A delusion, I won’t deny anything that is characteristic of me, and I am not one of those grinders who are not sharp. A pair, truly, is useless to us, but one skate always hangs on the harness. Why does it matter to me that I am, unfortunately, damaged, if I am flinty by nature: I decided to skate off—and you won’t stop me, if there was something to push off with—dzyń once, Citizen Pozhilykh, dzyń once, and you can chime along, grumble under the arch all the way to Valdai landing—the casting of bells, the baking of ring-rolls, the sale of hemp—and no one on the Itil River is your boss. May I continue? Well, that’s exactly it, lately there’s nothing at all to push off with. On the fourth Thursday of December, read Christmas Eve, I was walking from beyond the river, setting out from a certain gravedigger whom you probably don’t know. We were seeing off a lonely man who had kicked the bucket due to his own proud folly. He lived in Mylo (Soap), you might say, Mokolomovo (Flour-Milling), but on the outskirts, in snake-pits mixed with willows, he was a hunter, always kept hounds, rather shaggy-legged ones, but I doubt he corresponded with anyone: doubtful. He himself, however, was lean, like that bast in the heat, and his name—I don’t recall what it was. Guriy—that was his name, if it comes to that. Among the pastimes of the aforementioned Guriy, I will point out the following: he was the one who loved to shuffle and glide on the smooth ice with sharpened skates, which became the reason we lost the client, and the gravediggers gained the client. I’ll inform you of something else alongside this. In the archer-month days, to make it more dangerous, but more invigorating, the bachelors of both small-backwater banks arrange competitions on the weakening ice. It takes place in absolute darkness, deliberately without celestial bodies, and the people figure who is smarter and bustle about in forfeits and races, not caring about the holes and cracks. Which is fraught with peril. A certain Nikolay gave everyone a run for their money in terms of spinning around, a guy from the scrap cooperative, ultimately. Familiarly nicknamed the Pleaser (Ugodnik), he traveled the world as a genuine unfortunate, and some jokers, out of envy, mocked him, saying that he strutted about so elaborately because he was accustomed to wandering around in dark corners, it was, they said, his habit. What is the chronicle of his bad luck, if you don’t mind? Firstly, he experienced family trouble, but his wife got along with the wolf-slayer and ran the Pleaser out of the house, secondly. And then he knocked on the town’s shelter for the deaf, but the latter turned him away: our institution is only for the completely deaf, and you, as you can see, are also blind, so you understand. Therefore, this fellow made his way to the shelter for the sightless: nothing doing, the limit of bed spaces is full, if only he had his own harmonium, he would hang around the river stages and turn over the earnings to the common pot, and we would keep you for that. Nikolai Ugodnikov rose before them to his full hunched height, and, angrily weeping with his bitter white eyes, he shouted: you foreign pods, if I had my own music, would I ask you what to do? And the next step, he arrived—not wasting any time—at the house for visiting homeless people, but they graciously took him in, pouring him a drink from the heart. And they tempted him: live forever, brother. Then this lady came to visit one of them and noticed the Pleaser among the other poor folks, in their circle: who is that unpresentable one skating among you on the rink? Don’t worry, that’s just Nikolka skating among us on the rink. His situation is probably not so bad, she said, if he turns around so smartly. No, they said, his situation is not great, it’s terrible, his only remaining pleasure is to do mental figure-eights. The lady, however: no, you’d better not let him play the fool here, let him be, the uncomely one. And the almshouse asked the Pleaser: do us a favor, don’t live forever, brother, or else there will be complaints. He said nothing, for he was also reputed to be mute, and he departed the establishment into the distance and did not even look back. And he was taken in by the cooperative for collecting all sorts of scrap. They informed me that he hadn’t distinguished himself by long service, but that he had gotten a little too heated when drunk and had disappeared somewhere, and it’s unlikely he’ll show up. Such is the chronicle, if you don’t mind. The question arises: did I sharpen his unsharpened skates for him? And it turns out, I was the only one in the whole collective who sharpened them for him, while the other employees, disgusted, turned up their noses, even though they themselves weren’t exactly a fresh scent. I sharpened for Guriy, and for Krylobyl, and for Zimarly-Man, I sharpened for the entire Itil River, you see. But Guriy-the-Hunter, he pursued a career in running. You couldn’t feed him bread—just let him fly over the slick ice. He would fly into the cooperative’s workshop sometimes, it would come as a windfall, like long-awaited rain in a drought, he would run in, tired, and what do you want us to do—we’d chip in a ruble. And then a count. Guriy came out of the fog, took a knife from his pocket, I will sharpen that knife, and you—bring the wine. If it’s for me—I’m ready, though sadly. Once I was about to fasten a skate to his boot, but at that moment I notice that it misses the file. Grab it—but the file is completely missing, or my colleagues took it. Guriy thought nobly and said: what are you looking for, tell me. I told him. He told them: hey, you mechanics, return the tool, whoever took it, the fellow is searching for it. But the artel answered: get lost, what the hell do we need his damned file for. And furthermore: is he going to ride to Sloboda on a file? And you, too, will probably doubt whether it is reasonable, being based next to kubare, to trudge seven versts for nothing to Sloboda—on a file or on a dummy-file. Do not doubt, because the victim of fate is not rushing empty-handed; he is lugging glassware, jointly collected across the valleys and hills, in a sack on his mighty back. And—you may not be entirely aware yet—I hasten to notify you. In kubare, out of some false pride, they absolutely disregard glassware and sell take-out with bigger scandals than they deal commercially with from a human point of view. And a different scene is drawn in the tavern on the channel, behind a ridge of curly, but seemingly insignificant islands. There they will take yours at a fair price, without whims, and you have the right to consume the paid goods both inside and out. And Guriy directly told the grinders: even if it’s on a file. And then he to them: it’s probably awkward for Ilya to ride on a file, well, but I, of course, would be charmingly able to. Then they started egging him on, Citizen Pozhilykh. We believe, we believe, you are a famous marathon master here, look at the shanks you’ve grown—first-rate, both dry and long, are we, with our clueless faces, fit to stand beside you, especially Ilya-the-Sloven. I won’t hide it, sometimes there are worse photographs, but less often. Thus, the huntsman Manul, who went for delicate needs to Other Places, reported that he met even worse monsters there. So, not all is lost, dear friend, and as long as I can somehow hold the riveting tool and the grindstone, I won’t count myself among the talentless, and don’t look for despair in Ilya. I find the file, wipe off the burr, and set out, laden, toward the river. I head diagonally, at an angle, and since the ice is thin, the whole river is open beneath me. I reach the channel. Along it, having slowed down in the calm, I glide right under Sloboda. I don’t dawdle much there, no time. I complete the lawful purchase and sale, turn around, and rush home, and the twilight hovers over my foolish head, and my Daniils from afar light my icy path with a storm lantern, so that I don’t accidentally shoot past the workshops. We drank then. You, unfortunate one, you’ll bypass us as if we were standing still, the Artel teased, we are no match for you, Guriy, in racing. That’s right, mechanics, that’s right, I am the real dry runner among you all. Look, he told them, look at all our frosty expanses, there is no one whom I haven’t out-shuffled—where is this young man? They lit up, argued, and went out into the cold for a smoke. We stood on a hill; behind us a wooden city, large, where a rogue is getting drunk to the fullest, and below, before us, the backwater is frozen like the palm of a hand. Look around, Guriy declared to the masters, over there, on the right hand, is the village of Malokulebyakovo. Well, and who lives there? Who knows who lives in Kulebyakovo, the Artel members said evasively. For example, there is a well-known fat miller who the earth can barely bear, let alone the ice, and the miller has a blockhead at the mill, Aladdin, but we understand, racing with him is no honor for you. And there is also a huntsman in Kulebyakovo who, rumor has it, fell into a dry well. He is shouting, but no one hears him, and his wife knows where he is, but she has no interest in rescuing him because she is fooling around with a neighbor—also a huntsman, but a younger one: he has certainly turned her head. In short, the huntsmen here are busy, no time for races. And there is no one else in the village. And in Ploski, among the more or less fast runners, is a young man named Nikolay, who never had a proper name, or rather he did, but too long ago. And when Nikolai Ugodnik had his transfiguration and flew away, this one snatched his name for himself—didn’t let the good thing go to waste, so to speak. Guriy then: and the fact that he pilfers fish—is no problem at all, and it’s useless for the fishermen to be offended by him and want to destroy him. Just think—a man steals a little fish from people, they found something to condemn a man for. That’s right, Guriy, that’s right, creatures in the wild, or in the nets—they belong to no one equally, and if they belong to anyone—it is known Whose, but then all the fishermen here are, it turns out, hardened poachers in His sight. And it was in vain, in vain that they executed Nikola once upon a time. Here he is, by the way, taking their catch right now from their under-ice fyke nets beyond the islands. He tied the sack—onto the sled—and pulled. He is freezing, the blizzard has seared his far-sighted eyes, his felt boots are worn out, he lost his mittens, his skates are unsharpened, and the clingy Wolf-Fox is right there. Throw me a fish, he threatens Nikolay, throw me a second, or I will bring darkness upon the Itil. Nikolay Ploskovsky fears the night more than death, and he unreservedly throws three sturgeons into the forest for the Wolf-Fox. Because if he doesn’t make it to Gorodnishche before dark—he won’t get money for the goods, he won’t get money for the goods—he won’t be able to go to kubare, he won’t be able to go to kubare—he won’t be able to hang out with his comrades, and if he doesn’t hang out with his comrades—then why pull the load, Citizen Pozhilykh, judge for yourself. And while those figures with heavy clubs are waiting for Nikolay at the edge of the village, he, with half a sack of silvery sturgeon and slick green tench, approaches the suburbs. Greetings to you, wooden, cheering city, may you thrive, high, painted cockroach-towers. Shelter me, he says, city, for the coming night, a fisherman unlucky and slain by enemies, buy his goods, give me a little money, so it jingles in my pocket, let the wrinkles of the old man smooth out, let the lonely bat spread its wrinkled wings. And don’t be a miser, pour me a drink, city. And also, he says, introduce me, city, to some single woman, more cheekboned, kinder. He took off his skates and went, Nikolay from Ploski went uphill, and towards him rushes a devilish mass of the poor, without hurrying: give, give us from your catches for Christ’s sake, or else it will be worse. Gentlemen beggars, the fish in my sack are not mine, for everything around here, including the spindles of the mottled clouds, and the river, and the boats that lie like pregnant widows, abandoned, belly-up near the bathhouses, as well as our rags and we ourselves who are in them—all this is neither mine nor yours. We know, we know, the beggars, laughing like madmen, nodded then, so, give us, nevertheless, a tail each for our souls, give us the fish that are not yours, all the more so. I see, Nikolay weeps to the unfortunates about his grief, I see that you are unlikely to be thrown off balance. And he hands each one a tench. There’s nowhere to go—the mass of beggars, and he is alone. A lonely man on his path, especially when such a blue haze hangs over the Wolf River, he is, allow me to confess, unique in the whole world. Nikolay gives each of them a tail and enters the wooden December city with the remainder of his catch, and knocks with his ancient staff at the gates of the echoing courtyards, and curses the barking mutts chewing on the frozen chains. And we continue to stand on the shore; not many stars have shone over us yet, but still. And Guriy-the-Hunter, he declares without any circumlocution: I don’t consider it proper for myself to race with Nikolay Ploskovsky, even though I respect him slightly; he’s too old and fussy for me—I’d out-shuffle him and embarrass him.
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