Short Fiction, Ivan Bunin [reading women .TXT] 📗

The furniture in this parlour was crude. But then, in the spaces between the windows stood exquisite whatnots, crowded from top to bottom with porcelain knickknacks, crystal, tea china, and goblets rimmed with gold. As for the floor, it was entirely strewn over with dead bees, that crackled under foot. The empty parlour, as well, was strewed with the bees. Having traversed it, and also some other sombre room with a sleeping ledge built against the side of a stove, the young man came to a stop before a low little door and took a big key out of his trousers’-pocket. Having turned it with difficulty in the rusty keyhole, he threw open the door, mumbling something⁠—and Ivlev saw a cubbyhole with two windows: against one wall stood a bare iron cot without any bedding; against another⁠—two little bookcases of bird’s-eye birch.

“So this is the library?” asked Ivlev, walking up to one of these.

And the young man, having hastened to answer in the affirmative, helped him to open the little bookcase, and began to follow his hands covetously.

The strangest of books did this library consist of! Ivlev would open the thick bindings, would turn over a rough, gray page, and would read: The Forbidden Ground.⁠ ⁠… The Morning Star and Night Dæmons.⁠ ⁠… Reflections on the Mysteries of Creation.⁠ ⁠… A Marvellous Journey Into a Magick Region.⁠ ⁠… The Latest Dream Book.⁠ ⁠… And yet his hands would persist in trembling slightly. So this was what that lonely soul, which had secluded itself forever from the world in this little room and had but lately quitted it, had nurtured itself upon?⁠ ⁠… But perhaps this soul had not really been insane, after all? “ ‘There is a state.⁠ ⁠…’ ” The lines of Baratynsky came into Ivlev’s mind:

There is a state⁠—
But what name shall it be given?
’Tis neither dream nor waking, wavering twixt both;
And comprehending it within him, man
To frenzy’s verge is driven.⁠ ⁠…

It had cleared up in the west; gold was peeping out from behind the beautiful lavender-coloured clouds and strangely illumined this humble sanctuary of love⁠—a love beyond understanding, which had transformed into some ecstatic existence a whole life that perhaps was destined to be a most commonplace one had there not happened to be a certain Lushka, mysterious in her enchantment.⁠ ⁠…

Taking a little footstool from under the cot, Ivlev sat down before the cabinet and took out his cigarettes, imperceptibly scrutinizing and memorizing the room.

“Do you smoke?” he asked the young man who was bending over him.

The latter again blushed. “I do,” he mumbled, and tried to smile. “That is, I don’t exactly smoke⁠—rather, I try to jolly myself.⁠ ⁠… But, however, if I may⁠—very much obliged to you.⁠ ⁠…”

And, having clumsily taken a cigarette, he lit it with his hands trembling, walked over to the windowsill and sat down upon it, barring out the yellow light of the evening glow.

“And what is this?” asked Ivlev, bending down to the third shelf, upon which lay only a single volume, very small, resembling a prayerbook, and where also stood a casket whose corners were trimmed with silver, grown black with time.

“That’s just⁠ ⁠… the necklace of my late mother,” answered the young man, after a confused hesitation, but trying to speak negligently.

“May I have a look?”

“If you please⁠ ⁠… although it really is very simple⁠ ⁠… it won’t interest you.⁠ ⁠…”

And opening the casket, Ivlev saw a much worn bit of cord, a string of very cheap little round blue globules, resembling stone ones. And such emotion possessed him upon glancing at these globules, which had at one time lain upon the neck of her whose lot it was to be so beloved, and whose dim image could no longer be anything but beautiful, that his eyes grew dim from the beating of his heart.⁠ ⁠… Having looked his fill, Ivlev carefully put the casket back in its place; he then took up the little book. This was a tiny, beautifully made Grammar of Love, or the Art of Loving and of Being Loved in Return, published almost a hundred years ago.

“This book, to my regret, I cannot sell,” said the young man with difficulty. “It’s very valuable.⁠ ⁠… He even put it under his pillow.”

“But perhaps you will let me have just a look at it?” said Ivlev.

“If you please,” said the young man in a whisper.

And, overcoming his compunctions, vaguely oppressed by the young man’s gaze, Ivlev began slowly turning the leaves of The Grammar of Love. It was all divided into short chapters: Of Beauty, Of the Heart, Of the Mind, Of Deportment, Of Love’s Signs, Of Attack and Defense, Of Falling Out and Reconciliation, Of Platonic Love.⁠ ⁠… Each chapter consisted of very brief, elegant, at times very subtle, sentences, and some of them were very lightly marked by a pen in red ink. “Love is not a mere episode in our Life,” Ivlev read. “Our Reason contradicts the Heart and doth not convince the latter.” “Women are never so strong as when they arm themselves with Weakness.” “We adore Woman because she holds sovereign sway over our Ideal Dream.” “Vanity chooses; True Love⁠—never.” “A Woman of Beauty must take second place; the first belongs to the Woman of Charm. It is the latter that becomes the Sovereign of our Heart: before we have rendered our Heart an account of Her, our Heart becomes a Captive to Love for Eternity.⁠ ⁠…” Then followed An Explanation of the Language of Flowers, and again here and there were marked passages:

Wild Poppy⁠—Sadness.

Priest’s Cap⁠—Thy alluring beauty is imprinted on my heart.

Periwinkle⁠—Sweet Remembrances.

The Mournful Geranium⁠—Melancholy.

Wormwood⁠—Eternal Bitterness.

While upon a blank page at the very end, in tiny, beadlike characters, was a stanza of eight lines, written in the same ink. The young man stretched out his neck as he peeped into The Grammar of Love, and said with a forced smile:

“He wrote that himself.”

Half an hour later, Ivlev bade him goodbye with relief. Out of all the books he had bought only this small volume at a high price. The turbidly-golden